Laura, already briefed, spent some time in selecting an assortment of screws and a plastic arm for opening and closing a casement window, bought some emery paper and a pair of nail scissors, while Dame Beatrice wandered around inspecting the stock and then bought some metal clips for which she had no use whatever and a set of curtain hooks.
Having thus prepared the ground for negotiations of a different kind, she produced the photographs. The result was gratifying, particularly when she mentioned that Bert’s brother Fred had sent her. The elderly man hardly did more than glance at the pictures.
‘Why, that looks like young Todhunter,’ he said. ‘Used to work at Parrish’s the chemist till he got the sack for putting his hand in the till. Went abroad, so I heard. I used to go regular to Parrish’s before I saw the light and my stomach stopped playing me up.’ The old man looked at her with curiosity and asked, ‘Is he back here, then? Had trouble with him, have you?’
‘Personally, no. I have never even met him.’ She took another picture from the briefcase she was carrying. ‘Could you recognise this as the same man photographed recently by the Axehead police?’
He went white when he saw the disfigured face of the dead man, but gave the picture far more attention than he had given to the photographs of the head which Tussordiano had modelled and then he shook his own.
‘Could be,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t like to swear to it. This one is dead, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. She produced her Home Office credentials. ‘The police are interested in him, so I hope that you will be prepared to co-operate if they ask you to substantiate your recognition of the youth you knew as Todhunter. There is more than a suspicion that his death was no accident. That is why the police are so anxious to get him identified.’
‘I’ve never had dealings with the police and I don’t want to begin at my age.’
‘You could sell your story to the papers, Mr Smallwood,’ said his assistant. ‘They pay big money for stories about murder.’
Before they left Castercombe, Dame Beatrice and Laura, having asked to be directed to the chemist’s at which Todhunter had been an assistant, obtained no confirmation of Smallwood’s identification of the model in the coloured photographs, for the shop had changed hands. Nevertheless, as Laura said, there was now something to report to the Axehead police. The detective-inspector was interested but cautious. He did not see, he said, that the identification of young Todhunter got him very much further in identifying the body of the man found in the river, since nobody had yet come forward to put a firm name to this man. They could not be certain he and Todhunter were the same.
‘If the young fellow went abroad,’ he said, ‘we should have the devil of a job proving that he ever came back, especially as we don’t know to what part of the world he went. Then, again, if this shopkeeper in Castercombe recognised the youngster in your photograph, but can’t swear to the man in ours, well, there you are. In any case, we haven’t a clue as to why anybody should murder him, any more than we know why Goodfellow was murdered. What’s your theory, ma’am?’
‘I believe the man in the river knew of something in the murderer’s past and that the man found dead in the valley had been a witness of the river murder.’
‘Ingenious, ma’am, but where is the proof?’
‘Still to be sought.’
‘Do you know who the murderer is?’
‘Not, as you point out, without proof. I was told that young Todhunter was dismissed from his job for petty pilfering. Did the shopkeeper give him in charge as well, I wonder? If so, the police at Castercombe might also be able to identify my photograph and (a remote possibility, no doubt) recognise the man in yours.’
‘Well, I’ll get in touch with them, of course, since you suggest it, but, in my opinion, it’s a very long shot, ma’am.’
It turned out that there had been no charge laid against Todhunter, but the Castercombe police agreed to find out what they could and whether the youth had indeed left the town. If he had, they would do their best to discover where he had gone and whether he had got into any trouble or made any enemies there, but they indicated that it was a forlorn hope.
‘And, if he changed his name as, being in disgrace, he most likely did,’ they said, ‘we shall be left without a clue and and it might seem a waste of time and trouble to start looking into things now that he’s dead.’ The detective- inspector transmitted this opinion to Dame Beatrice when he received it and added that, great though he knew her reputation to be, even she would find this particular nut too hard to crack. Meekly she agreed.
‘Are you
‘I’ve been told about him, of course,’ she said, ‘but the only time he came here I was out with a couple of the hounds and when I got back I was told about his visit and what a screwball he seemed to be. Scared both the girls, I guess, so Bryony wished him on to Dame Beatrice, she being trained to deal with such cases and, so far as my knowledge goes, he never came here again.’
15
Watersmeet Again
« ^ »
There is something I ought to tell you,’ said Bryony. Dame Beatrice looked interested and nodded.
‘A confession of sorts,’ she said. ‘I have been expecting it, although I have no idea at all of what is about to be disclosed.’
