Chapter 25 #2
“All right. I’ll come, too.” Isabel tucked the letter into her string bag and they set off down the hill.
“The stationmaster is in charge of left luggage, and he knows me from when I was constantly dashing back and forth to Wycombe. I bet he knows I bought the Grays’ house, so he won’t be surprised if I ask about her trunks. ”
“Whereas if I do, he’ll either guess that I’m just being nosy or assume the police sent me to ask—if he knows about Alec—which could lead to trouble when he finds out they didn’t.”
Isabel grinned. “It sounds as if you’re often in trouble with the police.”
“Only because they regard any attempt to help as interference. I don’t know why I bother.”
“Insatiable curiosity? There’s the stationmaster now, looking portentously at his watch. Must be a train due.”
The burly man in the smart uniform frowned at his gold pocket watch and peered down the line towards High Wycombe. The wail of a whistle came to Daisy’s ears. The stationmaster’s frown vanished; he stowed away his watch and prepared to welcome the up-train to his station.
Daisy and Isabel waited until the train had made its brief stop, allowing two women, laden with loot from the Wycombe shops, to alight. As the stationmaster turned back towards his lair, Isabel accosted him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Jenkins.”
“Afternoon, miss. Summat I can do for you?”
“I hope so. I’m Miss Sutcliffe. I daresay you heard I bought Mrs. Gray’s house recently?”
“That I did,” he responded cautiously. “And I heard Mrs. Gray was foully done to death in that same house.”
Isabel turned to Daisy. “Is it all right if I explain?”
“You’ll be Mrs. Scotland Yard?” asked the stationmaster.
“I am. I’ll tell you what happened, if you promise not to pass it on.”
“I won’t. The comp’ny don’t put gossips in charge of stations. We see things and we hear things and we keep our mouths shut. Not like the county police. That Sergeant Harris, he’s in a mint of trouble on account of not holding his gab.”
“So I believe.” Daisy wanted to give him as little information as was necessary to persuade him to help.
“The thing is, the death occurred before Miss Sutcliffe and her friends moved in. The body was in the cellar and they didn’t have a key.
Because it’s been several weeks, it’s … not easy to identify, so the police are not absolutely certain it’s Mrs. Gray. ”
“Is that so! I’d reckernise her, surely. Always popping up to town, she was. Come through this very station four or five times a week, sometimes.”
“Do you think you would? Of course, you’d be willing to try, a responsible person like you. Shall I mention it to the inspector?” Best to keep Alec out of it as much as possible, though his profession had given her a chance with Mr. Jenkins.
“Happy to help, madam. I wouldn’t put meself forward, but if they was to request, I wouldn’t say no. Now, what is it I can do for Miss Sutcliffe?”
Isabel retrieved the letter from her shopping bag.
“I just picked this up at the post office. It’s addressed to Mrs. Gray.
It ought to be sent on to her if she’s alive, or returned to the sender with an explanation if …
if not. But there’s no return address on the envelope.
I’m sure you’d have told the police if she’d left any bags with you. ”
“I would, natural.”
“I wondered, though, whether she forwarded a trunk from here, and if so, whether you remember the address it was sent to.”
“There was three.” Mr. Jenkins visibly went through an internal debate.
“Reckon it can’t hurt to tell you ladies.
Not that I remember the addresses, mind, just the towns.
She sent two trunks to some place in France with a saint’s name.
Not one of our English saints. I ’spose the Frogs have their own saints. ”
A saint on the Riviera? “St. Tropez?” Daisy asked.
“Like that, but with a zed on the end. Trop-pezzzz,” he buzzed, “that’s it. What the street was I can’t tell you after all this time. Six weeks, must be, or more. The comp’ny’d have records, though.”
“I hadn’t thought of that! Of course they would, in case the trunks didn’t arrive, or were damaged in transit.”
The stationmaster nodded sagely. “Happens. T’other trunk, that one went to Paris, a fortnight or so later. Now what was the hotel? A king—not a name, something like ‘His Majesty’.”
“The Majestic?”
“That’s it. If there’s nothing else I can help you with, the down-train is due in two minutes.”
Daisy left it to Isabel to thank him, as another layer of protection against being accused of interfering. They left the station and trudged up the hill.
“If you don’t mind,” said Daisy, “would you tell Mr. Underwood you made enquiries with the intention of re-addressing the envelope, then realised that it ought to be turned over to him right away? And leave me out of it?”
“If that’s what you want. He … They should be pleased, shouldn’t they? They can get in touch with the hotel. If Mrs. Gray never turned up, she must be dead.”
“Not necessarily, but it would be another nail in her coffin, so to speak. I wonder what the letter says. I expect it’s from the friend she was going to stay with, asking why she hasn’t arrived yet.”
“More than likely. It’s a pity we haven’t got a full address. There must be millions of English people in St. Tropez. Well, dozens.”
“Probably hundreds. But Alec says the French police are far more efficient—or fussy, if you prefer—about keeping track of who’s where, especially when foreigners are concerned. With the name, they’ll be able to find her if they need to.”
Drizzle started falling again as they walked up the curving lane towards the Old Town.
Daisy opened her telephone-box-red umbrella and Isabel her conventional black.
It was only about a mile, and after the steep slope up from the station it wasn’t much of a hill, but Daisy began to flag.
She still hadn’t regained all her strength after her illness.
They crossed London End to the Saracen’s Head and went on past the hotel along Windsor End. Just before they reached the police station, Isabel stopped suddenly.
“What on earth are they doing?” she exclaimed, staring across the road.
“What? Where? Oh, good gracious, I didn’t spot them.”
In the graveyard, half visible through the rain, Alec, Underwood, and Ernie Piper stood among the trees and tombstones. They appeared to be solemnly discussing one of the stone memorials.
“Daisy, could they be going to exhume Mr. Gray?”
“Is that his tombstone?”
“I have no idea.”
“I doubt it. They can’t prosecute a dead person. The school’s just behind those yews, isn’t it? What do you bet they’re going after Cartwright?”