Monday cont. then Tuesday
Harry Marble was located less than an hour after
the Metropolitan Police had been asked to trace him. Marble had recently been
arrested for theft, but released after the robbed lady had said the jewels had
reappeared. That incident rather dampened Harry’s enthusiasm for being a
toy-boy.
***
Gary checked with Chris, who confirmed that the
prints from the villa were indeed Harry Marble’s. After a bit of to-ing and
fro-ing with the London Police, Marble was escorted to HQ Middlethumpton. A
barrage of questions awaited him there and Harry put on what Dorothy would have
called ‘an act’.
True to his word for a change, since Gary Hurley
liked to keep information to himself and from the Hartley Agency for a while,
he rang Cleo immediately and told her about Marble.
Gary wanted Cleo at Harry’s questioning. She would
be astonished. Despite his mediocre looks and bad manners, Marble was a toy-boy
by profession or inclination or both and not very attractive. His prey must not
have been very choosy about who they took as bedfellows. Harry would be
interviewed as soon as it could be arranged and he would let her know in good
time.
***
Sometimes Gary really got moving. An appointment had
been fixed for them to visit the women’s prison on Wednesday so that they could
question Mrs Baines about Jessie. The ex-housekeeper would not be pre-warned
about the visit. Cleo would go along with Gary. They both thought that Baines
would be so irritated by Cleo’s presence and the fact that the Jessie case was
being reviewed that she would blurt out something useful. The questioning was a
long shot, but there was always a chance that Baines would contradict what she
had said at her trial. A recording would be made of the interview, and Nigel
would go along to make live notes of the proceedings.
***
Nigel was excited. He had never accompanied Gary on
a location job before. In fact, his whole new job as assistant was a joy
forever, he had decided. OK, up to now it had always been policewomen doing it,
but that didn’t bother him. As Man Friday he felt useful and was grateful that
Gary had got him out of the hated chore of apprehending drunken drivers and
officiating at often gruesome accidents.
He’d heard of one policeman even having to deliver a baby on the roadside
because there was a huge traffic jam. He was thankful that it had never
happened to him.
***
Nigel had also had dealings with Jessie. The woman
had obviously been pregnant at that time and Cleo had once scared the daylights
out of him when she told him that seven month babies could survive so if he
ever had to deliver…
It had bothered Cleo that Jessie seemed to be
having pregnancies one after another. She was trying to equate Jessie’s new pregnancy
with the amount of time she had spent at that jail. Had she not been sent to
that mental hospital in her 5th month? What had happened to the
baby and who was the father?
***
Gary phoned Cleo to tell her that they could talk
to Mrs Baines that Wednesday so could she please get her list of questions
ready. He also informed Cleo that he had been told that Jessie was pregnant.
“I thought the place was women only, Gary. So who’s
the father? Was she raped by some guy or other?”
Gary did not think it was necessary to rape Jessie.
She was eager for attention of any kind.
“But you’ll have to find out,” said Cleo. “You
can’t have women getting pregnant in closed mental wards meant for women only.”
“I expect she seduced someone,” said Gary.
“Correction; I expect someone took advantage of
her.”
Nigel had gone home, so the conversation was less
guarded. For safety reasons it was conducted on cell phones.
Gary told her that Nigel was going along with them
to see Mrs Baines.
“Are you sure Nigel can deal with that, Gary?” Cleo
asked. “You know what a jitterbug he is.”
“I don’t see why not. There’ll be a grille between
us and her. All he has to do is make notes to back up the recording we make.
Both will be written up and he can do that back in the office, where he is safe
and sound.”
“Poor Nigel!”
“Don’t knock him. He’s the best assistant I’ve ever
had!”
“Almost like a wife.”
“Almost better than a wife and certainly better
than someone who two-times me,” said Gary.
“Meaning Shirley, I hope,” retorted Cleo. Shirley
had been Nigel’s predecessor and had a flimsy affair with Gary until she had
promoted herself to Gary’s boss and declared that he was preferable.
“Or Sybil? Surely you knew what you were in for
when you took up with an ex-hooker?”
“I know now, but she was not an assistant.”
Cleo enjoyed taunting Gary with his past.
“Only a lover?”
“Not lover, playmate, but if I can’t have you on a permanent
basis, you should not criticize someone who does want me.”
“I suppose that includes gaining respectability and
a cloak for clandestine activities.”
“I only love one woman, and you know who that is.”
“You know things would be different if I wasn’t
married.”
“You could have made them different by not marrying
that butcher.”
“Don’t say that again. My conscience won’t let me
even consider it.”
“It lets you sleep with me, Cleo.”
“That’s for my soul, Gary. That’s on a different
plane.”
“So I’m on the top shelf, am I?” said Gary. “I’ve
never heard of that hierarchy. I’d better make sure I don’t fall off.”
***
“Can we get back to business, please?” said Cleo.
“I don’t like you much when you’re sarcastic.”
“Rest assured that I don’t like myself much,
either. I’m also sorry that Nigel comes in for a lot of stick from his
colleagues. I feel quite protective sometimes. He’s almost like the son I never
had.”
“You are still young enough to have a son, Gary.”
“It takes two!”
“Better get busy, then!”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Gary,
wondering why Cleo was being so cruel. “See you tomorrow for the Marble case
questioning at 10 sharp, Cleo. If we can’t have Harry, at least we’ll have
Kelly.”
With those words, Gary ended the phone call.
***
Later, Cleo enjoyed telling Robert about the work
bit of that phone-call. Gary had actually told her something he had just
himself found out. That did not happen often enough, Robert said.
“Luckily, Chris keeps me informed,” Cleo told
Robert.
Negative talk about Gary, or talk in which Cleo’s
acumen surpassed that of the cop, pleased Robert. Cleo had a guilty conscience
trying to keep on the right side of her husband. She could not explain why else
she derided Gary to him.
“It’s a pity Nigel can’t have babies,” said Robert,
breaking into her thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“Hurley seems to have found the perfect wife in
Nigel.“
“Gary may be in a quandary about his emotions, but
that doesn’t include falling for gays like Nigel.
Cleo was careful not to deny her feelings for Gary
since she had derided him enough in Robert’s eye. But he was betraying Gary by
doing so and she hated herself for that.
“Who did he fall for then? Any idea?”
“If you don’t know by now, I’m certainly not going
to tell you.”
“I’ll ask Dorothy,” said Robert.
“Do that, Robert! I married you and I’m sticking
with you as long as we can make it work somehow.”
“That’s a strange bargain, Cleo,” said Robert. “You
are not tied to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. On reflection, I’m not sure.”
That would have been the right moment to tell Robert
the truth.
***
“I must do something about Jack Cooper,” said Cleo
instead, anxious to change the subject.
“Haven’t you had enough for one day?”
“Sure. There’s no hurry as long as Jack Cooper
thinks he’s in the clear.”
“Has Dorothy got over her undying passion for the
man?”
“I’m quite sure she has, Robert. She has not
mentioned him since that lunch date.”
“That’s just as well. I think he’s a baddie.”
“But I think she’ll see him again, just in case she
got the wrong impression.”
“Better warn your pet cop then.”
“I’ll be sure to, Robert.”
***
After an early visit to the Marble villa, where she
had caught up with the milkman and given him his money, Cleo drove to HQ in
good time to meet Harry, who had apparently been brought into HQ at the crack
of dawn.
In Chris’s report there were almost no fingerprints
on the stove; a teacloth hanging over the rail had probably been used to open
the oven door and the wheel controlling the gas was old. It even had a serrated
edge for better gripping and was therefore not receptive for fingerprints.
However, the unlocked drawer in Dr Marble’s desk
containing the household cash did reveal Harry’s fingerprints so he had been
there at some time in the recent past. Dr Marble had been expecting Mrs Riddle
to need more money, she had said, but Mrs Riddle knew where the key to the
drawer was kept. Dr Marble presumably had no need to protect his property from
her, Cleo mused. Anyway, she had no need to ask for money if some was still in
the drawer; Dr Marble was generous with the housekeeping, but Harry would have
to search for cash and presumably did.
Cleo mused that Harry might have found the drawer
open if Dr Marble had put money in or even taken some out to give Harry.
After a cup of tolerable espresso from Gary’s own
espresso machine, the coffee from the drinks dispenser in the corridor having
been declared disgusting, Cleo was glad to have a minute to tell Gary what she
remembered of Mrs Riddle’s comments on Harry Marble, but she did not know if
the woman had been telling the truth, so she was keeping an open mind.
***
Harry was brought in handcuffed. He was tall, dark
and not bad looking, but curiously scruffy. He must have some kind of
animalistic attraction for woman looking for some kind of TLC and prepared to
pay for it. He was spitting expletives and was, to put it mildly, crude. Cleo took
an instant dislike to him.
“What the hell am I doing here?” he shouted.
“Sit down, and we’ll tell you,” said Gary.
“Who’s we? Who’s the coloured woman?”
“For people who do not judge others by their skin
colour, that remark is offensive,” said Gary.
“Sorry, I’m sure,” Harry sneered.
“I don’t know what the fuss is about,” said Gary.
“After all, your uncle lives near here, doesn’t he?”
“Does he?”
“Weren’t you there the other day?”
“Who said I was?”
Harry’s conduct was volatile.
“I expect you’ll want to visit him again when
you’re released, won’t you?” Cleo added.
“Released?”
“Is there any reason why we should not keep you
here?” Gary asked.
Harry did not reply. He was starting to feel
cornered.
“You are his only relative, aren’t you, Mr Marble,”
Cleo said.
“Who are we talking about?” said Harry.
“Dr Henry Marble – the guy you were named after,”
said Cleo, who could not resist a little dig. “Tell me, Mr Marble, is your
mother dead?”
“What’s that to you, Miss Harding?”
“Hartley,” Cleo corrected. “Is your mother dead, Mr
Marble?”
“Yes.”
“So you are your uncle’s sole beneficiary, aren’t
you?”
“What if I am?”
“Always assuming something in your biography does
not make you unfit to inherit, Mr Marble,” said Gary, “or perhaps Dr Marble had
other children he did not talk about.”
“What are you talking about? I’m his only relative
so I’ll inherit – when he’s dead.”
“You would not need a will if you were the sole
beneficiary,” said Cleo. “So maybe there is someone else with a claim. Is there
a will stating that you are the only beneficiary, Mr Marble?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
“Not in your uncle’s files, then.”
Harry came to a sensible decision.
“OK. That will doesn’t exist.”
“But it would if things had not gone awry during
your visit to the villa, I take it,” said Cleo. “What did you plan to do?
Persuade your uncle to leave you everything?”
Harry Marble spat.
“Did he refuse again?” Gary asked, taking up Cleo’s
argument. “Did he tell you you’d have to take pot luck?”
Harry weighed up his options. Saying nothing would
not get him out of that cop’s office. A bit of the truth might.
“He did. Then I left. I had a date,” said Harry.
“Did you now?” said Cleo. “Are you going to tell us
who the lucky lady was?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“But you left the villa having decided that you
could not persuade your uncle to change his will, I assume” said Gary. “Then
you went to see your lady-friend. What did you do after that?”
“That’s none of your damned business.”
***
“But even if you inherited only part of your
uncle’s estate, he’d have to die first, wouldn’t he?” said Cleo.
“Unless he is already dead, Mr Marble,” said Gary.
From being cool and relatively collected, Harry
Marble now started to panic.
“Hey, don’t hang that on me,” he blurted out. “He
was dead when I got there.”
“So you were at the villa the day he was murdered,”
said Cleo.
“And Dr Marble was already dead?” said Gary. “What
did you do next?”
“I…”
“You stole the housekeeping cash, didn’t you?” said
Cleo.
“The drawer was not locked.”
“What did you do after that? Escape via the patio
door?”
“There isn’t one.”
“There is,” said Cleo. “It’s behind the velvet
drapes, Mr Marble.”
Harry Marble spat and uttered a few obscenities.
“So then you wanted to leave via the front door,
but the housekeeper saw you, didn’t she?” said Gary.
“No, she didn’t.”
“She must have, unless you had already knocked her
out, Mr Marble,” said Cleo.
Harry Marble was speechless.
“Let me tell you what happened, Mr Marble, if you
won’t tell us.”
“Nothing happened.”
Ignoring Harry’s comment, Cleo recited to him what
he had probably done:
“First you got in the house by pretending to
deliver a parcel, “ she intoned. “Then you knocked your uncle down and stole
the housekeeping; then you tried to get out of the house, but the housekeeper
saw you, so you followed her into the kitchen and knocked her out; then you dragged
her to the stove and pushed her head into the oven; then you turned the gas on
before escaping through the back door.”
“I swear I didn’t,” said Harry.
“Didn’t what, Mr Marble,” Gary asked.
“Didn’t put her head in the oven. It’s all lies!”
“Of course, you could have done all that in a
different sequence,” said Cleo. “In that case your uncle let you in and when he
tried to throw you out, you hit him over the back of his head with the marble
statuette, stole the housekeeping money and left via the front door. That’s
more likely than the first version, isn’t it?”
Gary reflected that Marble had not denied hitting
Mrs Riddle over the head. Before he could ask, Marble shouted “I swear I didn’t
kill him. He was already dead.”
“Which version is the right one, Mr Marble,” said
Cleo.
“Was he already dead, Mr Marble?”
“I know a stiff when I see one.”
“But if you didn’t knock him down, who did?” said
Cleo.
“How about Mrs Riddle?” said Harry.
“But she was already unconscious,” said Gary. “Or
did that part of the sequence come later, as Miss Hartley just described?”
***
“I could tell you a few stories about Mrs Riddle
and her brat of a kid.”
“What brat of a kid?” Cleo asked.
“The one she farmed out to her sister,” said Harry.
Then he hesitated.
“Go on, Mr Marble,” said Gary. “We’re all ears.”
“I don’t know any more. You’ll have to ask her.”
“If she is still alive, Mr Marble,” said Gary.
“Tell us more about that kid, Mr Marble,” said
Cleo.
“Ask Mrs Riddle!” said Harry. “She was having it
off with my uncle for decades. She’ll know.”
“But I can ask you why your name is Marble, can’t
I?” said Gary.
Harry chose not to answer. He was obviously
unwilling to answer any more questions. Cleo and Gary both felt that it was
important to follow up what Harry had already revealed. It might not provide
all the answers, but it might provide some.
“While we’re checking everything you’ve told us
this morning, you will remain a guest here at Headquarters,” said Gary, nodding
to the warder to take Harry Marble back to the cells.
***
“Satisfied now, Cleo?”
“All we now know for sure is that he was in the
house, Gary, but we knew that from the identification of the prints. That won’t
be enough evidence to convict him of murder.”
“I think we need to conduct exactly the same
questioning with Kelly,” said Gary. “Do you agree?”
“Sure, but not today, Gary. I’d really like to
think about Harry’s little bitty half-confession first,” said Cleo.
“OK. We can now be sure he stole the housekeeping,
but that’s all we can be sure of, so he can stay in custody for theft, if
nothing else. I think we need to talk urgently to Mrs Riddle,” said Gary.
“You don’t seriously think she would kill her
employer, do you, Gary? We don’t know for certain that the blow on the head
killed him. The fall might have.”
“That’s just as bad. And she was presumably his
unofficial partner – probably waiting to gain married status,” said Gary.
“But if it was Mrs Riddle, it would not be murder
or even manslaughter. She could have been defending herself.”
“Defending herself against Dr Marble? Isn’t that a
bit far-fetched?”
“She wouldn’t be the first to get away with that
kind of a plea, would she?” said Cleo. “If it’s true that she passed their
child on to be reared by someone else, she must have had a good reason.”
“A single woman has an affair with her employer.
Then she has a baby, but the employer is afraid it will cause a scandal. That’s
reason enough,“ said Gary. “So-called celibate Roman Catholic priests make good
use of it.”
“I doubt if many lawyers have taken an oath of
celibacy, Gary! I’d like to know if Dr Marble had any more offspring born on
the wrong side of the blanket. They would be beneficiaries, too.”
“First class women’s magazine stuff,” remarked
Gary. “Nearly as exciting as cellulitis. Are you seriously suggesting that Dr
Marble is Harry’s father, Cleo?
“Sylvie is certainly his daughter.”
“Isn’t it possible that Harry Marble knew about the
girl’s parentage and wanted to know where she is? That would be a good reason
for visiting his uncle.”
“I’ll go further than that, Gary. He visited the
guy he thought was his uncle to get money, found out about Sylvie because Dr
Marble told him that he was not the sole beneficiary. He then asked Mrs Riddle
where the girl was.”
“That sounds logical. So he’s named Marble because
he was named after his father. That must be on his birth certificate.”
“It’s the logical answer to my question and possible,”
said Cleo. “Mrs Riddle would not tell him where Silvie was, so he tried to kill
her. I expect he was planning to search through her things to find the address
of his half sister.”
“But he was disturbed.”
“Right.”
“By Kelly?”
“Could be. We must reconstruct the events in more
detail using data from all the interviews. They are sure to contradict one
another, but there will be some kind of cohesion we can work with,” said Cleo.
Gary grudgingly marvelled at Cleo’s logic. He loved
her all the time, but resented her at moments like this. However, he would go
along with her suggestion and not for the first time.
“We should get those interviews done then, Cleo.
Nigel will type out what is on tape from this morning and I’ll get Marble to
sign that statement and charge him with theft. That will keep him under lock
and key while we sort things out.”
“Great, Gary. And thanks for including me,” said
Cleo, appreciative of what it took for Gary to overcome his bias against
private sleuths, even against her.
“Thank you for being a driving force, Cleo.”
“United we stand.”
“We don’t have to stand, Cleo.”
“We do today, Gary. Robert’s taking the afternoon
off and he expects me to spend it with him. I’m freer tomorrow because I’ll
make sure I’m somewhere else on his official free afternoon.”
“He just wants to spend more time with his
beautiful wife,” said Gary.
“I expect he wants to check on her more often,”
said Cleo.
“I won’t check. I’ll wait,” said Gary drily.
***
Cleo drove back to her cottage wondering what kind
of a private life Gary had. What did he do in the evenings? He was not a
drinker. How much of a womanizer was he? Cleo had no claims on him, but she was
jealous of anyone he spent time with when they were not together. She loved
him, but she had no idea where their affair would lead them. Did she want it to
end? No, never. Was the idea of living in that beautiful Marble villa together
more than a spontaneous gesture: a declaration that she wanted to be with him on
a permanent basis? She had no idea of the time frame involved, but something
had to happen. Robert had made her respectable in the eyes of those who still
looked askance at her, but he had not made her happy. She would give birth to a
baby he could claim as his own, although he not want a child with her or anyone
else, for that matter. He was the clinger-on. She would have to decide what to
do and do it, respectability be hanged.
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