I phrased my next question carefully in my head. “Sal, do you know anyone in these parts, anyone at all, who would do terrible things like this?” I gave her an appealing look. “He has to be stopped before he kills more people.”
“I don’t have much dealings with people. Keep myself to myself, that’s what I do,” she said. “They don’t trust me and I don’t trust them. But there’s plenty of folk don’t deserve to live.”
“But you might be in danger too. You might be next.”
“Not me,” she said. “No one around here would ever dare touch me. They’re afraid of the Lovey Curse.”
“I’m going with the inspector today,” I said. “With any luck we’ll know who is doing this by tonight.”
I saw her look at me strangely and I found myself wondering if she was the killer after all. Hadn’t she just said that there were plenty of people who didn’t deserve to live? But how had she managed to cover so much ground? How could she possibly have known about the butcher driving on the road from Newton Abbott, or got to a farm on the other side of Bovey Tracey? And how would she be strong enough to drag a body into the bog?
As I went to take my leave, another thought struck me. “Sal, on the night that the old lady at the big house died, you went to the kitchen for food, didn’t you? You didn’t see anyone else, did you?”
“When I was leaving, I did see Willum,” she said. “He was going round the side of the house to their back garden.”
I paused, digesting this. “Did you speak to him? Did he say what he was doing?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t speak to him. I just went my way and left him to it. Willum often does jobs for people.”
“I must go. I’m supposed to be meeting people,” I said.
“Remember what Sal just told you,” she said. “You watch yourself, miss. And you had any sense, you’d go home now, before it’s too late. Sal sees danger in your future.”
I was still strangely shaken by the time I arrived at the cottage and found the inspector and my grandfather standing together beside the big black police motor. Granddad and I got into the backseat while the inspector rode in the front, next to his driver.
“It should be a nice ride to Torquay today,” the inspector said. “Better than driving in that awful fog yesterday.”
“I hope your meeting went well,” I said.
“Have you been keeping tabs on me?”
“Of course not.” I flushed. “Your constable said you’d had to go for a meeting.”
“Of a sort,” he said. “The prisoner they recaptured in Birmingham has just been returned to Dartmoor Prison. I went to talk to him.”
“And did you learn anything?”
“Not a dicky bird. He still maintains that they split up as soon as they reached the road, and he thought the other two were both heading for London. As for how he made it to Birmingham and where he got his civilian clothes, he’s just not talking.”
“You won’t get convicts to squeal on each other, unless there is something in it for them,” Granddad said.
“I just met Wild Sal,” I said. And I told them about her seeing the body dragged into the bog and the fact that she’d seen Willum in the Ffrench-Finches’ back garden.
“Willum? The simple-headed one?” The inspector stroked his chin. I noticed he’d shaved that morning. “I can’t see him having the wit to pull off crimes like these. He’s like a big kiddie. No, I think we’ll find we’re dealing with a real smart aleck, the sort of man who thinks he’s the cat’s whisker and that society hasn’t appreciated his talents. You know, the quiet bank clerk who feels that he’s been overlooked. Probably doesn’t have friends. Probably spent months or years planning this.”
“Rather like the man you described to us, then,” I said. “You said one of the escaped convicts was a bank clerk, had brains and was ruthless.”
“Yes, I did.” Inspector Newcombe considered this. “But he’d have no reason to stick around these parts. And what’s more, I’m sure he doesn’t have any local connections either. No, my betting is that he’s safely back in London.” He turned to look out the window as we swung around a hairpin bend on the hill. “But there are plenty more like him. The Great War turned some of them cuckoo, didn’t it? Came home from the trenches and were never the same.”
We reached the crest of the hill and had a lovely view ahead of green fields and copses, farms nestling in hollows and in the far distance a sparkling line of sea. The road dropped from the moors until we were driving through the tamed landscape of the coast. Torquay looked positively Mediterranean in the sparkling sunshine. There were palm trees along the front and couples strolling, taking me back to my time in Nice. But the couples here were bundled in great coats and scarves, betraying that the weather here was not exactly balmy. We left the expensive hotels and souvenir shops until we reached a more humble backstreet with semidetached houses and children playing on the pavement outside.
My heart was racing as we walked up the front path and the inspector rapped on the door.
“Mrs. Goldblum? Detective Inspector Newcombe, Devonshire Constabulary. I telephoned you last night,” he said. “Your father is still here, I hope?”
“Yes, he’s here, but I don’t want him upset.” The thin and rather gaunt-looking middle-aged woman frowned at us. “That robbery has quite unnerved him. He fled from persecution in Russia as a young man, you know. He remembers the Cossacks burning his village and killing his parents. He said he has felt safe in England until now.”
“I quite understand,” Inspector Newcombe said. “Let us hope that we will soon apprehend the person who did this and he can feel safe again.” He saw her looking at us. “This gentleman is a former detective from Scotland Yard, who I hope can help solve this quickly.”
“And I’m his granddaughter,” I said quickly, before anyone could give my full name and title.
“I don’t know why it might take all these people to solve a simple robbery.” She was now glaring at us suspiciously.
“It might turn out to be not so simple,” the inspector said. “It may be tied to other crimes in this area. So if we could please speak with your father?”
She stood aside to let us into a narrow front hall. “He’s in the back parlor. It’s easier to heat. I’ll make us some tea.”
We went through to a small room crammed full of furniture. Mr. Klein was sitting in an armchair beside a roaring fire. He got to his feet, looking at us nervously.
The inspector held out his hand. “Mr. Klein. Detective Inspector Newcombe. We met the other day in connection with your robbery. And these are two acquaintances who have been helping me.”
“Good of you to come, Inspector,” Mr. Klein said. “Please, take a seat, all of you. I recognize the young lady from my shop the other day. Any news on the robbery yet?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid, but we may be closer to solving it.”
We sat, I perched on an upright chair away from the fire, leaving the two men to sit close to Mr. Klein.
“I’d be so happy if you could find out who broke into my shop,” he said. “I haven’t slept a wink since, you know. If someone had smashed a window and grabbed a few items, it would have been one thing. But letting himself into the store with no sign of a break-in and then opening my safe—well, that’s something else entirely, isn’t it? I won’t feel safe again until he’s found and arrested.”
“That’s exactly what we hope to do, Mr. Klein. And we have reason to suspect this wasn’t just a simple robbery. It may be linked to a chain of crimes, some of them murders. So in many ways you’re lucky to be alive. And I suggest you stay with your daughter until we tell you it’s safe to go home.”
“Goodness me.” Mr. Klein put a hand to his heart. “You have your suspicions then, do you, Inspector?”
“We’re hoping you can help us, Mr. Klein. We suspect there must be some kind of vendetta motive behind this, so I’m asking you to think. Has there been anyone with whom you’ve crossed swords, anyone who has written you a nasty letter? Anyone who might want to punish you in any way?”
“Because I’m Jewish, you mean?”
“Not at all. None of the other victims was a Jew.”
“Well, that’s a relief, anyway. I always told myself that was one thing I could count on in England. And as to your question—no, I can’t think of any enemies. I keep myself to myself. Don’t make trouble. Don’t get involved in
