Faintley Speaking

‘Suit yourself, but, if you’re going to be a fool and land yourself in a mess, don’t come to us to get you out of it!’

Tomson laughed. His mirth had an unpleasant sound and Darling told him briefly to come off it.

‘I don’t want no police protection because I ’aven’t done nothing wrong,’ said Tomson, becoming plaintive. ‘It’s ’ard to make an honest living these days.’

‘But not quite so hard to make a dishonest one,’ retorted Darling. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll come clean. I’d much sooner believe Mr Mandsell’s word than I would yours, for reasons we both understand, and Mr Mandsell’s description of the parcels doesn’t tally with yours. Now, then, what about it?’

But Tomson was either too wily, or too much afraid of his mysterious employers, to say more than:

‘I can’t ’elp what ’e says, can I? I’m telling you what I know. It was statues and the one what got broke ’ad a bit of fern inside, and that’s all.’

Darling returned to Vardon.

‘It’s still all guesswork what the parcels contained,’ he said. ‘Either Tomson’s lying, or else there are two types of parcels. Our best plan, at this end, is to keep an eye on this chap Mandsell, I think. There’s a gang at work, of course. That sticks out a mile. If the gang try and lay Mandsell out we ought to get them, and if he tries to contact them we ought to get him.’

‘Do you think he was in with Miss Faintley, then, and his story about the other fellow who came out of the telephone box is all lies?’

‘No, I’m inclined to believe him, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an open mind. Anything doing at your end?’

‘Nothing at all, so far. We’ve established (to our own satisfaction, anyway) that the house on the cliffs outside which the body was found was not being lived in. One room seems to have been visited occasionally, but even that hasn’t got a bed in it, and there are no arrangements for cooking except a kitchen range which obviously hasn’t been used for years.’

‘Fingerprints?’

‘What do you think? And yet the place is thick with dust! No, we’re not looking for a cosh-boy or a jealous lover. I agree with you that we’re looking for a gang, and those parcels are at the root of the matter. I don’t suppose it would help much, but for the sake of curiosity I’d like to know whether Tomson is lying about the parcel he says was broken. Mandsell swears his was a flat one, and not heavy, so that doesn’t sound like counterfeit coins or diamonds. It could be counterfeit notes, though. We ought to go to Hagford Junction next to see the parcels clerk. If he’s been in the habit of handing parcels over to Miss Faintley it shouldn’t tax his memory too much to remember what they were like.’

‘Yes, we must check on that clerk.’ They motored at once to the station. Here they met with a slight check. The man was on leave, and nobody knew his holiday address. The railway station staff were positive, however, that he had gone away. He had shown them folders describing coach tours and had made it clear that he was going to book one for himself and his brother. The brother nobody had met. The name was Price.

Darling took down the address he was given and went to the house, but nobody answered his knock, and a neighbour came out and said that she had seen the brothers go off with suitcases. So that was that for a bit, thought Darling. He decided that it did not matter very much. When however, at the end of the following week he returned to the station without Vardon, who had gone back to Torbury, it was to learn that the Left Luggage clerk had not returned to duty at the appointed time, and that no explanation was forthcoming of his absence.

‘So it looks as though he might have been mixed up in it at least as much as Tomson is,’ Darling confided to Vardon when next they met. ‘I daresay he’s only one of the smaller fry… certainly nobody would trust Tomson very far!… but I’d like to have got my hooks on him, especially now I know he’s vamoosed.’

‘Stymie! The inquest’ll have to be resumed some time or other, but we can’t add any more evidence at present. Can you tackle the older Miss Faintley again, and see if she can cough up any more?’

‘I can try, but, although she’s a spiteful, dissatisfied old besom, I think she’s told us everything she knows.’

‘Yes, I was afraid perhaps she had.’

‘I’ll try her, anyway. In fact, I’m going to get a warrant and search the flat.’

‘She won’t like that, but it ought to be done. And you can’t get Tomson to squeal?’

‘I’ve a hunch he’s in the same boat as Miss Faintley was, and if it is a gang we’re after, they wouldn’t give a little rat like him very much to squeal about, or else not much time to do the squealing. Have to get a description of that Left Luggage clerk. He’ll have to be found, although I wouldn’t mind betting that his disappearance has nothing to do with the parcels or the murder.’

‘Pity petty cash was ever invented,’ said Vardon. ‘How would it be if we got two independent descriptions of the fellow, one from the station people and the other from Mandsell? Might act as a useful check on Mandsell, don’t you think?’

‘You mean that if Mandsell is concerned in the business (I don’t believe it, you know!) his description of the clerk is likely to be misleading? Right. Let’s try it. The station people first, of course. Then we can measure up what they say against anything Mandsell may tell us.’

The description of the missing man would fit a good many people, the two police officers decided. There was only one helpful point. He had been left-handed to such an extent that it amounted to a physical idiosyncrasy of a very definite kind. It seemed as though his right hand was almost useless. Even the heaviest parcels on his shelves he would attempt to take down.or put up using his left hand only. Otherwise, he was a brown-haired man of thirty- five or so, of medium height, slim without being noticeably thin, brown-eyed, with a mole on the right cheek- bone.

The officers checked this information with his landlady, who confirmed it, and said that when the brothers left their lodgings for their holiday, each had been wearing grey flannel trousers, a white open-neck shirt, Mr Tavy Price (the railway clerk) a green-fawn sports jacket, Mr Hugh Price a brown one. Their suitcases were of dark-brown fibre and had been labelled Mohawk Tours.