LITMIR.BIZ

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additional worry, is there?’

      Holt frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand you. What were your reasons for not showing Miss Benson the card?’

      ‘If you’ll pardon the expression, Julie’s had enough!’

      Both Holt and Ruth stiffened. There was a perceptible change in Wade’s manner; he had grown firm and even a little pompous.

      ‘She’s really been through the mill!’ he went on. ‘The police gave her a dreadful time on Tuesday, trying to trip her up over her alibi. If you ask me, they’re a lot of blundering idiots, throwing their weight around and trying to scare an innocent girl into saying something foolish!… It’s quite ridiculous – Julie wouldn’t hurt a fly! The police ought to have the decency to see that and leave her alone!’ Wade’s face was now brick-red with anger and he puffed at his cigarette in short, aggressive bursts.

      Ruth spoke to him soothingly. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Mr Wade. I don’t suppose the police really meant to cause her any distress.’

      Mr Wade was not listening. ‘… As if she’d go and shoot the chap she was once in love with!’

      ‘It has been known,’ Holt commented quietly.

      Wade turned to protest and Ruth slipped in quickly, ‘I agree with Mr Wade – the idea’s unthinkable. But the police have to do their job, you know. It’s their duty to check everyone’s alibi.’

      He began to cool down and tossed a thankful smile in her direction. ‘I must say, I wish you were the one who had carried out the police interrogation, my dear. I can see you wouldn’t have upset her. As it is, the poor girl’s just a bundle of nerves. First Vance breaks off the engagement, then he gets himself killed, and then the police practically put her through the third degree. She’s absolutely innocent, she was nowhere near Vance’s study when he was shot.’

      ‘But how do you know that?’ Holt asked again.

      ‘How do I know? Well, because she said so, that’s enough for me! A pretty little thing like that doesn’t go around telling lies, that I can assure you.’ His smile flashed on and off like a neon sign.

      ‘I see.’ Holt’s tone was thin. ‘And so, to save her further worry, you intercepted her post and took it straight to the Scrantons?’

      ‘Yes. I thought they ought to see it. Also, in that way no one could accuse me of trying to conceal evidence, or anything like that. I’ve always been very careful where the law’s concerned. You have to be, in my profession.’

      ‘What is your profession, if I may ask?’

      ‘I’m a representative.’

      ‘For whom?’

      Mr Wade coughed and two or three conflicting expressions fought for pride of place on his cherubic face. ‘I represent one of the largest firms of funeral directors in the country. We arrange everything, from floral tributes to a wide choice of tasteful gravestones and suitable inscriptions. Here’s my card.’ His hand sped to his wallet and a visiting card appeared at conjuror’s speed. ‘Well, I think I’ll be running along.’ He stood up. ‘Perhaps you’d care to take possession of the postcard, Mr Holt?’

      ‘Yes, I’ll look after it. Just let me ask you a couple of questions before you go, Mr Wade. You mentioned that Vance Scranton broke off his engagement with Miss Benson. What happened – was there a quarrel?’

      ‘It’s perfectly simple. Vance was a pleasant enough lad until he met Antoinette Sheen. He and Julie always got on well together. But this sophisticated painter-woman soon changed all that. She’s ten years older, for one thing. He became harsh and cynical – a sort of worldly cynicism that just didn’t sit well on a twenty-year-old boy.’

      ‘And you put down this change to Miss Sheen’s influence?’

      ‘There’s no doubt about it! From the moment he met her Vance was a changed person. In a very short time he’d broken off his engagement to Julie and after that you just couldn’t talk to him. He’d always been, if you’ll pardon the expression, rather a self-opinionated young man. Of course, one expects a certain amount of that in undergraduates, and they generally get away with it because they have the natural charm of youth at the same time. But Vance wasn’t in the least charming once he came under Antoinette Sheen’s spell.’

      Ruth held Wade’s coat ready for him to slip into and another pantomime followed before he could be persuaded to accept this simple courtesy from a lady; and a subsequent polite argument as to who should be allowed to open the street door took all of three or four minutes.

      ‘What an extraordinary little man!’ observed Ruth as she climbed the stairs after seeing him off the premises. ‘I almost expected him to drive away in a hearse, but he runs a Volkswagen of a particularly nauseating shade of blue.’

      ‘If I may say so, and if you’ll pardon the expression, I should have thought black would be more suitable,’ Holt said in fair mimicry of their visitor’s ingratiating tones.

      ‘And if I may say so,’ Ruth imitated, ‘isn’t it a pity that Mr Jimmy Wade is such a terrible liar!’

      The smile left Holt’s face abruptly. ‘Go on, Ruth …’

      ‘Well, I don’t know if he’s lying about the Christopher postcard – he could quite easily have written it himself – but I’m sure he hasn’t told a fraction of the truth about his sister-in-law’s alibi.’

      ‘My, you’re on form tonight, aren’t you? I spotted that myself. It’s much too glib to say that because she’s a sweet little thing and the police are a lot of boorish oafs, Julie always tells the truth. For my money, Jimmy Wade knows where she was at the time of Vance Scranton’s death.’

      ‘Then why the dickens doesn’t he tell Hyde and clear the girl?’

      ‘That, if I may use the expression, is the sixty-four thousand dollar question! And who is this Christopher fellow? Come to that – who killed Vance Scranton?’

      ‘All of which we’re determined to find out!’

      ‘Yes. Yes, indeed.’

      ‘Well, what’s the first move?’

      ‘I’m not sure. We’ll start by asking Curly at Brighton tomorrow.’

       Chapter Four

      The ‘Sport of Kings’, in crisp autumnal sunshine at Brighton the following afternoon, seemed much more royal and exhilarating than in the seedy London betting shop. Ruth had won five pounds at the Tote and was in high spirits. So engrossed had she become in the colourful spectacle around her that the object of their journey – the search for Curly – had very nearly slipped her mind. She was to be forgiven, however, for it was her first visit to a large race-track.

      Holt was content to let her display her enthusiasm, for her genuine interest in the races served to disguise his own preoccupation. They had dressed in sporty tweeds and Holt wore a powerful pair of field-glasses slung around his neck in addition to his usual photographic equipment. Ostensibly he used the binoculars to follow the horses as they rounded distant bends in the track, but in fact he more often trained them on the faces of the crowd in the Grandstand and the various enclosures. And although he went to the paddock at the beginning of each race, apparently to form an opinion of the runners, he spent more time glancing idly at the spectators than in appraising horse or jockey.

      It was just after the start of the fourth race that he announced suddenly in a low, tense murmur, ‘Got him!’

      ‘Where?’ asked Ruth without taking her eyes off the horses as they swept in a tight pack into the first bend.

      ‘The last place you’d expect. He must have come into money recently.

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