The Secret of Annexe 3

'I'm a detective. Had you forgotten that, too?'

But it would have taken more than Morse's meanness with money, and more than Morse's cavalier notions of punctuality, to have dashed Lewis's good spirits that morning. He told Morse all about his encounter with the Welsh optician; and Morse, in turn, told Lewis (almost) all about his encounter with the fair Philippa at Paddington. At a quarter to twelve Lewis made another fruitless visit to Eddleston Road. But half an hour later, this time with Morse, it was immediately clear that someone had returned to number 45. It was the only house in the row whose occupants had dispensed with the need for keeping its front garden in any neat trim by the simple (albeit fairly drastic) expedient of covering the whole area with small beige pebbles, which crunched noisily as the two men walked up the sinking shingle to the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Friday, January 3rd: P.M.

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

(JAMES THURBER)

THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE of the last five years (admitted Helen Smith) the two of them had successfully contrived to defraud dozens of honourable institutions of their legitimate income. But neither her husband John nor herself had the means whereby to make any reparation even fractionally commensurate with such deceit. She, Helen, fully understood why society at large should expect some expiation for her sins; but (she stressed the point) if such compensation were to be index-linked to its ? s. d. equivalents, there was no prospect whatsoever of any settlement of the overdue account. She showed Lewis the note she had found on her return from London; and would be happy to show him, too, the little hidey-hole beneath the second floorboard from the left in the spare bedroom where she had duly found the ?600 referred to — that is if Lewis wanted to see it. (Lewis didn't.) Unshakably, however, she refused to hazard any information about where her husband might have made for; and indeed her refusal was genuinely founded in total ignorance, both of his present whereabouts and of his future plans.

The pattern had seldom varied: ringing round half a dozen hotels at holiday periods; taking advantage of late cancellations (an almost inevitable occurrence); there and then accepting, by phone, any vacancy which so lately had arisen; promising a.s.a.p. a confirmatory letter (with both parties appreciating the unreliability of holiday-time postal services); staying only two nights where 'The Businessman's Break' was scheduled for three; or staying just the one night where it was scheduled for two. And that was about it. Easy enough. There were of course always a few little secrets about such professional deception: for example, it was advisable always to carry as little baggage as was consistent with reasonably civilized standards of hygiene; again, it was advisable never to park a car on the hotel premises, or to fill in the section on the registration form asking for car-licence numbers. Yet there was one principle above all that had to be understood, namely, that the more demands you made upon the establishment, the more enhanced would be your status vis-a- vis the management and staff of all hotels. Thus it was that the Smiths had learned always to select their meals from the higher echelons of the a la carte specialities of the chef, and wines and liqueurs from any over-valued vintage; to demand room-service facilities at the most improbable periods of day or night; and, finally, never to exchange too many friendly words with anyone in sight — from the manager down, through receptionist to waitress, porter or cleaner. Such (Helen testified) were the basic principles she and her husband had observed in their remarkably successful bid to extract courtesy and respect from some of the finest hotels across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. The only thing then left to be staged was their disappearance, which was best effected during that period when no one normally booked out of hotels- mid-afternoon. And that had usually been the time when the Smiths had decided to take leave of their erstwhile benefactors — sans warning, sans farewell, sans payment, sans everything.

When Helen Smith came to court (inevitably so, as Lewis saw things) it seemed wholly probable that this darkly attractive, innocent-looking defendant would plead guilty to the charges brought against her, and would pretty certainly ask, too, for one-hundred-and-one other offences to be taken into consideration. But she hardly looked or sounded like a criminal, and her account of the time she had spent at the Haworth Hotel appeared honest and clear. Four (yes!) bottles of champagne had been ordered — they both liked the lovely stuff! — two on New Year's Eve and two on New Year's Day, with the last of the four still in the larder if Lewis wanted to see it. (Lewis did.) Yes, she remembered a few things about the Ballards, and about the Palmers; but her recollections of specific times and specific details were even hazier than Philippa Palmer's had been the previous evening. Like Philippa, though, she thought that the evening had been well organized — and great fun; and that the food and drink had been very good indeed. The Smiths, both of them, enjoyed fancy-dress parties; and that New Year's Eve they had appeared — an oddly uncomplementary pair! — as a seductive Cleopatra and as a swordless Samurai. Would Lewis like to see the costumes? (Lewis would.) Whether Ballard had eaten much or drunk much that evening, she couldn't remember with any certainty. But she did remember, most clearly, Ballard walking back with her through the snow (Oh yes! it had been snowing heavily then) to the hotel annexe, and ruining the right shoulder-lapel of her mackintosh, where his right hand had left a dirty dark-brown stain — which of course Lewis could see if he so desired. (As Lewis did.)

During the last part of this interview Morse had seemed only minimally interested in Lewis's interrogation, and had been leafing through an outsize volume entitled The Landscape of Thomas Hardy. But now, suddenly, he asked a question.

'Would you recognize Mrs. Ballard if you saw her again?'

'I–I don't really know. She was in fancy dress and—'

'In a yashmak, wasn't she?'

Helen nodded, somewhat abashed by the brusqueness of his questions.

'Didn't she eat anything?'

'Of course, yes.'

'But you can't eat anything in a yashmak!'

'No.'

'You must have seen her face, then?'

Helen knew that he was right; and suddenly, out of the blue, she did remember something. 'Yes,' she began slowly. 'Yes, I did see her face. Her top lip was a bit red, and there were red sort of pin-pricks — you know, sort of little red spots. .'

But even as Helen spoke these words, her own upper lip was trembling uncontrollably, and it was clear that the hour of questioning had left her spirits very low indeed. The tears were suddenly springing copiously and she turned her head sharply away from the two policemen in total discomfiture.