Death and the Chaste Apprentice Read online

  Dundy sighed. “It will. Most of that will have to wait till tomorrow, though. Shall we contact the Yard and see if we can use you for a couple of days? Then you might get days off in lieu.”

  “If you could,” said Charlie. “Days off have been pretty scarce as long as the football season’s lasted. Are you going to be doing anything more tonight, sir?”

  “Well, there was one thing. . . . Did you notice that doorman chappie, Nettles?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Know him by sight. Probably even exchanged a few words, back in the days when I was on the beat.”

  “My guess from the look of him is that beneath that old-soldier exterior there lurks a leaky-mouthed individual who’d tell you his life story for the price of a pint.”

  “I think that’s probably true, sir. The bloke on the door says he’s already had his war memoirs.”

  “He didn’t give him his boss’s life story as well, did he?”

  “Afraid not. But he did say the place had gone to the dogs since he took over.”

  “Right. That sounds like an antidote to Mrs. Capper’s ‘not an enemy in the world’ delusions. Let’s have him in now.”

  • • •

  “Is that what she said?” asked Frank, the doorman, shooting a cynical smile across the manager’s desk at Iain Dundy and taking in Nettles and Charlie as he licked his lips in anticipation. “Life and soul of the Shakespeare, popular with all and sundry?”

  “That’s pretty much what she told me,” said Dundy, looking straight at him.

  “Balls,” said Frank succinctly. His mouth was still working with relish at the prospect of character assassination ahead, and there was a glint in his old eyes. “Balls with the best of intentions, I don’t doubt. I’m sure she believed every blessed word she spoke. But it’s balls nonetheless.”

  “Not popular?”

  “About as welcome as the death-watch beetle.”

  Frank expanded in his chair in the manager’s office. This was the life. This was something to take home to the missus. A murder investigation and him in on the ground floor. Key witness, in fact, by reason of his position outside the main entrance. And he could tell them a thing or two about the hotel, the superintendent would find, a thing or two that he wouldn’t hear from anyone else. There wasn’t much that had escaped him in the last week or two.

  Iain Dundy looked at Frank skeptically: his big body expanding with self-importance, his furry mustache twitching with relish at the idea of being part of a murder inquiry. He had been through the events of the evening with him, when he had last seen Des, and so on, and that had been moderately satisfactory. Now he was getting on to the nitty-gritty, which was hearsay and conjecture, and all the more enjoyable to Frank for that. He’ll tell me everything, thought Dundy, but will that everything be right? He looks like the sort of man who turns suggestions into conjecture and conjecture into fact in the twinkling of an eye. Basically a stupid man but possibly to be trusted on the things he knows best. And he must have come to know Des Capper pretty well.

  “Mind you,” Frank resumed, “fair’s fair. He came after poor old Arthur Bradley— Know Arthur, did you? Most everyone did hereabouts. Him being so popular and the perfect gent, it would have been difficult for anyone coming after. This one no sooner showed his nose and everyone was asking why the devil he’d been appointed.”

  “You mean, if he was unpopular in the Saracen, it wasn’t altogether his fault?”

  Frank scratched his ear in puzzlement. “No, I don’t altogether mean that. What I suppose I’m trying to say is that no one could have been really popular, but he sank plumb to the bottom of the charts. And that was because of what he did and the sort of man he was.”

  “Maybe you’d better explain,” suggested Dundy.

  And explain Frank did. Explained Des’s manner—the oozing, oleaginous manner that hid the desire to dominate. Explained his know-all ways that made him believe he could pronounce and advise on all subjects under the sun. Explained that on his daily rounds as manager of the hotel he made it his business to gain knowledge of his guests rather than to minister to their comfort. And Frank went further. He made it clear that if it struck Des’s fancy to use his knowledge, gain a covert pleasure by flaunting it, then that is exactly what he would do.

  “To take a case in point,” Frank concluded, still expressing the utmost pleasure in his narration by the whole set of his body. “This happened several weeks ago, but I actually saw it, and I can vouch for it. There was this bloke, late middle-aged, who’d been here before with this dolly-bird, who he’d signed in as Mrs. Williams, or whatever it was. This time he had a middle-aged lady, one on the sour side, or that was how she looked, and she was also Mrs. Williams, obviously the real one. He was a fool to do it, but there you are—some people are fools. Now, dinnertime it was, and I had to deliver a telephone message to the next table, so I saw this as it happened. Des Capper was doing his rounds—the headwaiter does not like him doing it in the dining room, but he hadn’t a hope in hell of stopping him—and he went up to the Williams table, obviously singling it out, and with his usual dripping-oil manner he said: ‘Good evening, Mrs. Williams. Everything to your satisfaction, is it? This is the first time we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming you to the Saracen, I think?’ And after the usual courtesies, he turns to her husband, and he says: ‘Mr. Williams, on the other hand, we have seen before. Though that time, if I remember rightly, you were . . . on your own, weren’t you, sir?’ And he puts his hand on the man’s shoulder and applies a bit of pressure.”

  “Ouch!” said Iain Dundy.

  “It was daft that’s what it was. One way to make sure that bloke was never again seen at the Saracen with or without fancy woman. There’s hotels where a man like that knows he’s safe, and there’s others, and Des Capper had put us into the second category with a vengeance. But you see the sort of man he was, don’t you? He couldn’t resist that little display of—what shall I call it?—intimate knowledge, power over the man.”

  “And I suppose that at festival time there were plenty of things going on in the hotel that Mr. Capper could feed on?”

  “Was there ever! I get a kick out of the goings-on at festival time, I can tell you. So you can guess what Des Capper was like. Went poking his nose in everything, giving advice here, a little bit of reminiscence there, and sniffing out intimate secrets all over the shop!”

  “Which was not popular with the guests, I imagine?”

  “They were getting up a petition, that I do know.”

  “A petition?”

  “To get a change of manager by next year. Des unsuitable in view of the central position of the Saracen in the events of the Ketterick festival—that kind of thing.”

  “Hmmm. Interesting. Have you any idea what kinds of thing Capper had found out in these nosings around?”

  “Ah—there you may find Win knows more than I do.” He winked. “Pillow talk. Though mostly when he spoke to her it was to give orders. As far as him and me were concerned, we didn’t swap information. I like to know what’s going on as much as the next man, but with me it’s just a case of ‘That’s the way the world goes.’ With him it was something more . . . something nasty. Mind you, as often as not he’d know I knew, and I’d know he knew, if you get me. As in the case of Mr. Gottlieb—I beg his pardon: Herr Gottlieb.”

  Iain Dundy sighed. At last we must be coming to the arty ones, he thought. “And who is Mr. Gottlieb?”

  “Some kind of musician. Conductor, I think. Travels around with a couple of heavies. And this is the grubby bit, which is what Des enjoyed most, because he really had a nose for the grubby: They pimp for him from among his fans. It’s almost like them pop stars back in the sixties. He had one of the little groupies visiting him tonight, and Des commented on it when he came back from watching the play.”

  “So there were visitors to the hotel during the first half of the play?”

  “Just the one. Just her. Between her going and Mr. Mallory coming back
from the concert, there was nobody.”

  “Capper was interested in the girl, was he?”

  “You bet. He was interested in anything connected with Gottlieb. Probably goes back to the war or something, though he always says he was in India and the Far East. Mind you, so far as I can see, everybody seems to hate Gottlieb. But with Des it seemed to have a special edge.”

  “But he never talked it over with you or told you why?”

  “No, he just winked when I told him about the girl.”

  “Anyone else he was interested in?”

  “Oh, everyone. His little antennae were always a-twitch. But not everyone gave him the sort of raw material he was interested in. There were the Galloways, of course—”

  “Ah, them I’ve heard of,” said Dundy. “May even have seen them on tour or on television. Definitely a couple, aren’t they? Melissa is her name? And—”

  “Clarissa and Carston. Yes, they act as a team, as often as not, and they were here a couple of years ago, when they created the same sort of brouhaha. They act as a team, but they don’t act like a team, if you get my meaning, sir. Not offstage. She’s sleeping with the producer, and he’s sleeping with an assistant stage manager, and everyone has to put up with a running commentary on the whole business from dawn to dusk, which is part of some sort of nonstop row they’re having.”

  “A row about that?”

  “I don’t think so. No, according to the room maid they’re completely open about that. But they spend their time sniping at each other nonetheless, and they give the impression that’s as much habit as anything else.”

  “Maybe it is. On the other hand, there could be a specific reason, and Capper could somehow have got wind of it. Anything else?”

  “One of the older actresses drinks. Who doesn’t these days? A fair bit of A sleeping with B. Not all that interesting. Then there’s something interesting happening around the Russian lady.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something hush-hush.”

  “Do you think she wants to defect?”

  “Maybe. I expect that’s probably it. But if so, she’s a long time about it. What’s to stop her defecting now if she wants to? Anyway, there’s something going on between her and one of the younger actors. Peter Fortnum, his name is, and he speaks Russki. Of course, it could be just good old-fashioned sex, but it looks like something more, too. If she’s wanting to defect, I’d have thought Mr. Mallory would be in on it, too, but though this Fortnum is always making hush-hush phone calls and going to and fro with messages, I haven’t noticed that Mr. Mallory is involved in any way.”

  “You mentioned Mallory before. Who exactly is he—and what?”

  “A poncy agent. He acts for the Russian lady and for a superponcy Indian boy who apparently sings with that choirboy’s voice I can’t stand. He was at the concert tonight, of course.”

  “But did you say he came back at Interval time?”

  “That’s right. He said he left at the concert interval, and he got back to the Saracen sometime before our interval here. Around eight-fifteen, I’d say. He’d heard Singh—that’s the name of his poncy Indian boyfriend, if you’ll believe it—do his bit and came away. ‘Singh sang divinely,’ he said. That was all he was interested in.”

  “So the only outsider who came into the hotel during the first half of the performance—say, from seven to about eight-thirty—was the girl for this German conductor?”

  “That’s right. Austrian, I think he is, if you’re getting technical.”

  “Otherwise there was Des Capper coming out to watch the play from the courtyard and then going back in again?”

  “That’s right. And going on about how he was going to serve in the bar at Interval, as if it was the height of bloody condescension on his part to serve in his own pub.”

  “And then just Mr. Mallory?”

  “Right again.”

  “Now, you were talking, I know. Can you really be quite sure that no one could have got past you?”

  “Sure and doubly sure. Bob and I talk every year during the play, but both of us keep our eyes open. It’s our job to stop gate-crashers, and we do.”

  “What about the other entrances?”

  “Well, obviously there are other entrances on a normal day. Each of the three bars has one, for instance, and there are doors into the kitchens. But naturally, when the play is on, you can only keep open manned entrances, and that means the one in the central gate. All the others are locked, and I watch the one into the hotel and Reception.”

  “That was the regular procedure each year, was it? Not something Mr. Capper had organized?”

  “No, no, I’ve been doing it for years now. And as I say, generally me and Bob at the ticket gate meet halfway and have a bit of a natter, because we can’t watch the play even if we’d wanted to, which we don’t. But we keep a sharp eye on our entrances. You couldn’t have it getting around that there were ways of slipping into the plays without buying a ticket.”

  “Well, if that’s true, it does narrow the field a bit. And the field could do with some narrowing.” Iain Dundy sighed and looked round at Nettles and Charlie, sitting quiet and respectful in the background. That young Peace looked as if he was following well. He was on the ball and was going to be of help. Dundy looked at him as he said: “Anything else, I wonder?”

  Charlie cleared his throat. “Just one thing, sir. I was here with a girl for the performance, as you know—”

  “That’s right,” put in Frank. “Saw you going in.”

  Charlie smiled at him ferociously, as if daring him to voice the thoughts that had gone through his mind at the time. “Well, I thought you should know that we went into the Shakespeare Bar at Interval, and the door out to the street was locked, because we thought of going outside to get some air. At the time I wondered about fire risk. As it was, we had to go out into the courtyard again, which was very crowded, what with the seats and all the people.”

  “Right,” said Iain Dundy. “So that confirms what has just been said.”

  “That’s right, sir. There was just a question in my mind about the key. It wasn’t in the door, of course, or we could just have turned it and gone out. I wondered who had it.”

  “It would be Mrs. Capper,” said Frank promptly. “And the barmen in the other bars would have had theirs with them, too, while the play was going on. I think it’s the headwaiter who sees to the back kitchen door. The drill was that they would open up just as the performance was ending.”

  “Right.”

  “The chief fire officer has okayed the arrangement,” said Frank self-importantly. “The fact is, we can get the big gates open in a matter of thirty seconds, so the major part of the audience would be out in the twinkling of an eye. The balconies are not high, and there are rope ladders on every one.”

  Dundy nodded. “Well, I think that’s it—for the moment only, of course. I’ll want to check up on details later. I wonder if that girl Dawn is still around. If she is, maybe I could just tie up a few loose ends with her before everyone goes off to bed.”

  “She was getting poor old Win Capper off to sleep,” said Frank. “She’s a very conscientious girl. She may have waited to see if she was wanted.”

  And she had. She had started cleaning up the Shakespeare, but one of the constables had said she’d better not do that in case there was anything there that might be important in the way of evidence. So she had sunk down into a chair in the foyer and lit a cigarette. She was a smart girl, with normally dancing eyes and a humorous expression. Now she was tired to the point of exhaustion, but she tried to pull herself together enough to answer Dundy’s questions.

  “The last time I saw Mr. Capper? Let me see, that would be before the play started. Mrs. Capper had got him to help behind the bar. Not that he was much help, I imagine—all talk and very little action.”

  “You didn’t like him?”

  “Nobody did,” said Dawn blithely, with the confidence born of a feeling that no one was l
ikely to accuse her of murdering her boss. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but it doesn’t do to tell lies about them, either, does it? He was damn-all use about the place, and that’s a fact. Win did all the work, and she was nothing better than his slave.”

  “Nevertheless, Mrs. Capper got her husband to promise that he’d be there to help at Interval?”

  “That’s right. I came in just as they were talking, about it, so I overheard. He was trying to wriggle out of it ‘You’ll have Dawn to help you.’ As if two was enough when they’re crowded five or six deep waving five-pound notes at you! But he hated serving. He liked swanning around—that was all he was good for.”

  “And as it turned out, Mrs. Capper had only you for help, and you were with her all evening?”

  “Yes, as it turned out. We coped at Interval. In point of fact, if you’ve got a third who doesn’t do much but get in the way, he’s more of a hindrance than a help. And Win had got a lot of glasses poured out in readiness while the first part was going on. So it was hectic, but we managed.”

  “But you were with Mrs. Capper all evening?”

  Under Iain Dundy’s calm, clear gaze, Dawn faltered as she understood what he was getting at.

  “What you’re saying,” she muttered, “is that in this sort of case it’s always the husband or wife who’s suspected first. Though in fact Win thought Des was God’s gift, poor cow.”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just trying to get at times.”

  “Yes, well— I filled the dishwasher in the kitchens with glasses in the second half. There were just too many to do in clear water in the bar, like Win normally would. That took me—what?—ten minutes.”

  “And in the first half?”

  “I just fetched the snacks. . . . They were something a bit special, a sort of free extra because it was the first night. There was a bit of balancing plates on the tray and that, but it couldn’t have taken me more than five minutes. Less, if anything.”