The Dreaming Detective Read online

  At last she had just rolled over and hoped for oblivion. It must have come at some stage because the next thing she knew she was waking from a nightmare. She had been crossing some enormously wide motorway and two lumbering vehicles — absurdly unlikely, had one been a circus merry-go-round? — had approached her at speed from opposite directions.

  For a moment, to shake it all off, she had sat up, breathing deeply, conscious of feeling unpleasantly sweaty. She had managed then to get back to sleep without disturbing a snoring John. But it had not been for long. Half an hour later she was awake again, heart thudding. She had dreamt this time she was wearing what seemed to be a heavy winter coat and trudging along at the steeply shelving edge of the sea somewhere, its heaving waters scintillatingly blue. Then a devil, horns, trident and all, had come suddenly rushing down towards her.

  Did I actually dream that, she asked herself now, blinking in the sunshine. It really seems too much of a classic reflection of what I talked about with John last evening. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, for heaven’s sake. Had it been, in fact, only part nightmare, and part half-awake wandering thoughts?

  But the devil and the deep blue sea situation Mr Newbroom put me in yesterday was not anything I dreamt. He said what he said. He gave me the orders he did.

  But now she took a deep breath and made herself get down to the little book’s fat pages.

  What, after all, had been the exact circumstances, back in 1969, that had made this murder a nine-day sensation? Let’s see if Michael Meadowcraft makes it clear.

  His first paragraph did to an extent, at least as far as the sensational nature of the affair was concerned. The phrases came popping off the page like so many fireworks — There they are, five men and two women, the only people who were able to go into the magnificent ballroom of Birchester’s premium hotel, the Imperial, where in deep meditation sat alone the young preacher so soon to be brutally done to death.

  Then a few lines further on, This barbaric attack on a youth whose pure preaching of five simple precepts had entranced the whole nation, Do not kill your fellow men’, ‘Do not yield to Mammon’, ‘Do not bring children into the world without the care of both mother and father’, ‘Do not give way to drunkenness’ and ‘Do not let drugs alter your mind’. But one of those seven watchers just outside was to take, with evil throttling hands, the young man’s innocent life ...

  Hardly the prose of the Dostoevsky that Mr New-broom brandished so happily in my face. But facts are beginning to emerge, for all the sequinned slush they’re covered in. The Boy Preacher — actual name not yet revealed and I can’t quite recall it — killed by manual strangulation, in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel now on the point of demolition. And apparently only seven people had had the opportunity. So much for the third item of the familiar trinity, means, motive and opportunity. And means, of course, present no problem. Everybody has hands that can strangle, though there may be something to be learnt from the size and strength of those hands. I’ll see about that when I get to read the ancient files. So what about motive?

  She went back to the pages.

  And almost at once word-splattering Michael Meadowcraft gave his answer. So who was it who emerged from that deluxe ballroom having carried out their vindictive purpose? Because there can be no possible doubt that sheer vindictiveness lies at the heart of this atrocious crime. All right, Mr Meadowcraft, we’ll see about that when you give us a few facts concerning those five men and two women. If you ever do.

  Pages swiftly turned.

  And, yes, here we go. One by one, analyses of each of the seven suspects.

  Let us take them in turn and see what it is that may have driven a twisted mind to commit the act that can never be taken back. First, an Indian long domiciled in an England that may yet regret having offered him sanctuary, Harish Nair by name. Nair, who is in his late fifties, is a distant relative of brutally-done-to-death Krishna Kumara-mangalam — Ah, that’s what the Boy Preacher was called — and he, too, has been, after a fashion, a preacher, an occasional lay preacher, at one of Birchester’s nonconformist chapels, a man claiming all the virtues of humility, dressing always in simple cotton shirts and cotton trousers, earning a bare living as a self-employed tailor. But one wonders what, as he poured forth the words of his sermons to captive congregations, was going on in the depths of his mind. Was he vindictively jealous of the young relative who lodged in his own house, yet whose preaching had far outshone his own? He is a man of notably short stature, and — I make no accusations — it is a well-known fact that small men are often jealous of others taller than themselves.

  Well, no beating about the bush there. Michael Meadowcraft’s prime suspect planked down for all to see. But let’s have a look at how he treats the remaining six who, he says, had that opportunity.

  Mr Lucas Calverte. Ah, a different layer of society now. Harish Nair was given no preliminary Mr. And, yes, though there are no details of where and when Lucas Calverte was born, there seems to be a thoroughly obsequious later biography.

  Mr Calverte is a distinguished Birchester barrister who recently gained the honour of being made Undersheriff for the county of Birrshire in appreciation of the many services he has given to the community, including having held the chairmanship of the Birchester Council for Immigrant Welfare. It was this post, no doubt, that accounted for his presence among the somewhat odd collection of people one might call the Boy Preacher’s Clique, the few who provided him with assistance of different kinds, the few who alone were in a position to enter the empty ballroom of the Imperial Hotel at the time of the murder. Not, one would think at a first glance, a man likely to commit murder, Undersheriff Lucas Calverte. And yet ... who can probe the depths of the human heart?

  Oh, clever Meadowcraft. Writing your book when it had become clear that no immediate arrest was going to be made, you must have had to maintain an Agatha Christie interest in keeping all the possible suspects in play. All right, you’ve done that, in your way, with little-likely Lucas Calverte. So who next?

  Yes, one of the women. Michael Meadowcraft knows what will best hold his readers’ attention.

  Miss Priscilla Knott. Right, with that Miss we’re still in the comparatively higher reaches of Birchester society in the sixties. And, yes, Miss Knott is a teacher

  -Oh, of course, back then teachers were still respected

  -now in her early twenties (One must not ask a lady’s age too scrupulously!). When I met her to discuss what she had seen on the terrible Sunday evening of the Boy Preacher’s last meeting, I at once formed the impression that I was talking to someone who could only be described as ‘a good woman’. She holds the strongest views about what is wrong with present-day society and evidently is prepared to do all that she can to see that the evils around us are brought under proper control.

  Well, when I get to see Miss Knott now — unless I find that her vigorous opposition to the evils around us brought her to an early grave — I wonder what she’ll have to say about our twenty-first-century drug problem and our numerous single-parent children. What was the Boy’s precept? Do not bring children into the world without ... whatever his actual words were. I somehow doubt that Michael Meadowcraft reports them correctly.

  Okay, let’s see if he’s managed to keep even this moralistic lady within his circle of suspects. Oh, right, he has. He has. How about this? But strange are the workings of the human mind. How often have we seen a golden model of good behaviour prove at the final outcome to be quite the opposite.

  Next, please.

  Barney Trapnell. Down in the lower depths again now? And, yes, Barney is one of the Boy Preacher’s humbler followers. A watch repairer by trade, he has a small shop in the working-class area to the north of the Birchester-Liverpool Canal. And, poor fellow, he is, too, a cripple, having been afflicted in infancy by poliomyelitis leaving him with a leg fastened between iron callipers. Until I met him, in his turn, I wondered how it had come about that someone of his type had become
one of the Boy’s Clique. As soon as I saw him I could see what the possible reason was. Though Barney’s leg is weak, his brawny arms and hands are, in compensation, markedly strong. If the Boy, who was a frail creature indeed, needed physical help, as I have learnt that he did, here was the person to provide it. Tb provide it, but with those very strong hands to provide what else? Can a sudden fit of twisted bitterness have led him to one appalling moment of revenge on life?

  Oh, nasty Michael Meadowcraft.

  But read on. Time for a second female appearance, I think.

  Yes, here it is. Barbara Willson, known to one and all by the sobriquet, Bubsy. And Bubsy, your author is constrained in the interests of truth to report, is not a very savoury young lady. She has, in fact, appeared more than once in the Magistrates’ Court charged with indecent behaviour in a public place. Nor is her personal appearance any more attractive. When I tried to interview her in the course of my researches she refused to meet me. But I was able to see her at a slight distance, and I have to report that her outer garments were, if not wholly dirty, certainly such that no decent mother would approve of them. Nor is her visage any tribute to female beauty. She is solidly round-faced, and on that pasty white surface, the lips slashed with ill-applied scarlet, there sprout half a dozen wirily thick black hairs. By no means a pretty sight.

  Come on, Meadowcraft, leave the poor girl alone.

  More, from what I have learnt from reliable witnesses of the scene at the time of the murder, she was no more wholesome on that day. Her excessively colourful blouse was stated to have been stained with recently spilt tea and her manner in tramping up and down the foyer of the Imperial ballroom clearly left a lot to be desired.

  Quite enough said about Bubsy Willson to put her squarely into the number two spot if, in the years after Who Killed the Peacher? was written, poor Mr Nair should be conclusively proved innocent. As I suppose he has not been in fact.

  But two more to come.

  Who’s this? Sydney Bigod, street trader Mr Bigod is another of the doubtful characters the Boy Preacher, in his charity, appears to have allowed to enter his immediate circle, the Clique as I have called it. As far as I have been able to ascertain Bigod appeared in Birchester a year or two before the terrible day that saw the brutal killing of the Boy Preacher How and when he managed to attach himself to the Boy I have been unable to discover. Mr Bigod, if Bigod is his real name and not one given to him because of his foul mouth, is not a man to vouchsafe details of his past. Nor have I been able to discover very much about his present activities. Sydney Bigod left Birchester, in a hurry, immediately after he had been interviewed by Detective Chief Inspector Kenworthy, in charge of the inquiry into the murder.

  Another useful fall-back candidate, if the money Michael Meadowcraft puts on poor Harish Nair proves not to be a good bet.

  Now for the last of the seven.

  Marcus Fairchild is a figure of mystery.

  Oh ho.

  His stay in Birchester was remarkably short, though during it he contrived to become a member of the Boy’s Clique, by what means I can only guess. As far as I have been able to ascertain he arrived just two or three days before the Boy met his appalling end, and, like Sydney Bigod, as soon as he had given his details to DCI Kenworthy he left the city.

  Ah, but here’s a footnote.

  * Marcus Fairchild was reported killed in a London traffic accident shortly before the publication of this book. He must therefore be eliminated as a suspect.

  So one possible murderer put beyond the reach of Mr Newbroom’s predatory hands, if on somewhat illogical grounds.

  Right, that’s that. Seen all I want to see, and learnt enough to be going on with.

  Something else I can do, though, to get a better picture of it all. I can visit the scene. The Imperial Hotel, dilapidated though it may be, is still intact, and its ballroom where that poor boy was, in Michael Meadowcraft’s thunderous words, brutally done to death should equally be there for me to see.

  Chapter Three

  Harriet stood in the shelter of the grimly shut-up Imperial Hotel’s pillared portico contemplating, beside its firmly closed doors, an eight-inch rust-rimmed hole where once there must have been a bell. Had there been a round plate of gleaming brass enclosing it? Wrenched away, if so. Or had there been the words Night Bell in sturdy black letters on a fat white enamel disc? In fragments now perhaps. Or had a solid brass knob asked to be given a commanding tug? Now, somewhere down inside, only a frayed end of sturdy wire remaining.

  Whatever ... But no way of getting access to the other side of the blank, time-dried, once noble wooden panels facing me. Tramp round to the back quarters of the block? But it occupies the whole section of the street. If there’s nothing else for it, I will. However —

  She raised her fist and brought it down once, twice, a third time on the crack-lined panel nearest her. Not without a painful jar at each blow.

  She waited then.

  And at last there seemed to be a slight juddering of the door’s surface. Bolts being withdrawn? Yes, there was definitely a regular mechanical squeaking coming from the far side.

  But it was taking a long time to produce any result. Harriet imagined a foot-long bolt, almost solidly rusted into place, being swivelled with difficulty to and fro. Squeak, pause, squeak, pause, squeak.

  Would whoever was wrestling with it ever manage to get it free? And, if they did, would there be another bolt down nearer the floor inside that would have to be —

  No.

  One leaf of the tall door began slowly to be drawn back, its bottom edge emitting a low grinding noise.

  Now, into the foot-wide aperture that had been contrived there swam a face. The face of a man some four or five inches shorter than herself. Protuberant blue eyes behind rimless glasses were perched on a little podgy nose. The round red dome of the head above had a few lines of grey hair scraped across it. There was a faint grey-white bristle over cheeks and chin. Below the neck, only just visible in the gloom inside, a brown shopman’s coat covered a neatly rounded pot belly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police.’ She flashed her warrant card. ‘I understand that demolition work on the hotel is due to begin on Monday, and I would very much like to inspect the ballroom before then.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the little man confronting her. ‘It’s the murder, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  She decided to say no more. Mr Newcomen wants, Pansy Balfour indicated, the investigation to be kept secret until, with a blaze of publicity, the work of Greater Birchester Police under its dynamic new Chief Constable gets maximum publicity. Right then, I’m not going to be the one to let the news get abroad. Little point though there is in keeping it under cover.

  ‘Well now,’ the little man said, I can tell you all you want to know about it. I was here at the time. General manager. Name of Popham, Charles Popham. No more than the caretaker nowadays. Came out of retirement and took on the job when the old place was finally closed. A bingo hall, I ask you. But that Sunday evening — No, I must give you the facts. It was the Monday evening. For some reason the Boy Preacher’s meeting had had to be postponed from the date originally chosen. But the ballroom did happen to be free next day, and we were able to give it to them. Always ready to oblige, if we can. And so I was at the centre of it all, supervising the occasion. Indeed, I was the one who actually went and telephoned the police. I had the pleasure of telling Detective Chief Inspector Kenworthy, a very fine officer, a very fine officer indeed, everything he needed to know about the ballroom and about its foyer, where they were all assembled when it happened. Yes, indeed. But come in, come in.’

  Right, a piece of luck, Harriet thought. Provided this chap’s all that he says he is.

  ‘And the ballroom, where I believe the Boy Preacher was strangled,’ she said, ‘is it still as it was thirty years ago?’

  ‘Ah, there you’re going to be unlucky. The old hote
l has gone down in recent years. Sadly down. I don’t know what the youngsters they brought in when I retired thought they were doing, but they let the place go down and down. You ought to have seen it in its prime. There wasn’t a hotel to get near it in the whole of Birchester, in the whole of the Midlands, I might say. Everyone would tell you that. The city’s finest. Its finest by far.’

  He was scuttling along in front of her across what seemed to be, in the dim light, the hotel’s reception area. Impressive it may have been once, but now all Harriet could make out were strips of reddish embossed wallpaper dangling down where they had come away from the walls. A long mahogany counter that must once have gleamed with daily polishing was now dimmed by layer on layer of dust.

  Then they entered a wide corridor, the carpet along it in places dangerously holed.

  ‘Yes,’ little Mr Popham prattled on, ‘the cream of Birchester society would come to our ballroom in those days. The cream. The grand balls that took place you wouldn’t believe. There’s nothing like that nowadays. Only what they call raves. Raves, I ask you. It’s through here, through here.’

  He took a turn to the right and trotted ahead of Harriet into yet deeper darkness. But he knew exactly where to find the switches, and after a series of heavy clickings the place they had reached was, if not dazzlingly illuminated, at least fully visible.

  It seemed to be the entrance foyer to the ballroom itself. Harriet remembered from Michael Meadowcraft’s elaborate, if hazy, description of the scene that it would have been here that his Seven Suspects — invariably capitalized — had waited for some two hours while, in the ballroom beyond, the Boy Preacher had sat in deep meditation. And, yes, in the middle of this long, narrow outer room there was a large cushioned circular bench, in the centre of which there must once have stood, if Michael Meadowcraft could be relied on, a tall clump of pampas grass in a large brass planter. So it seemed that during the two hours’ wait there would have been opportunity for any one of the Boy’s so-called Clique to take advantage of the cover the tall foliage must have provided and, after a hasty look round, to slip unobserved into the ballroom itself.