FRIDAY EVENING: THE SPOONER SOCIETY FALLS APART
Devoran slid it out and examined it carefully, holding it by his fingertips. He turned it this
way and that, holding it to the light. His heart was thumping again. One day that
thumping would be accompanied by violent shooting pains down his left arm and he
would keel over. But not this time, which was fortunate because this was the vital piece
of evidence; there was no doubt about it.
“You found it in the car?” he asked Dobbin.
“In the tool kit, in the trunk.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Moore snapped, “they’re just little pliers. Hardly a
blunt instrument.”
“But they’re yours, Mrs. Moore?”
“I didn’t deny it, did I? Why should I?”
Devoran was aware of an odd sense sweeping through him. It sometimes happened
on these occasions. A strange clarity of mind, together with a feeling that matters
were rolling to their conclusion almost without his help. The members of the Spooner
society ceased to be real people, ceased to be opponents, and became mere pawns in
the end game, already out-thought and captured. Bill would have said he was drunk
with power, but he would be wrong. Training, experience and instinct had come together.
Or so he would like to think. He took a deep breath to calm the thudding in his
chest. “Because I think we’ll find these are the pliers used to make the sparking device
found in the Ocean Dream. ”
“Good grief, you’ll have a hell of a job proving that!”
“I don’t think so, Mrs. Moore. You see, these pliers are cast iron, but the
prongs on the device are brass. Iron is harder than brass. And the jaws of these pliers
are rough and poorly cast. They slipped a few times when you were using them to bend
the prongs together, and scratched them. There are traces of brass on the pliers; I can
see them quite plainly. And I think we’ll find the serrations on the jaws match the
scratches on the prongs.
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 19
“Furthermore,” he said, exceeding his normal vocabulary in his growing confidence,
“There is the coil of wire that led to the sparking device. I think we’ll find that
the pliers tie it all to you.”
There was a long silence. Bill would have described it as pregnant. Devoran
slipped the pliers back into the plastic bag, handed it with the wire to Dobbin and
walked to the window, weak with relief. It was still raining. The benches outside the
Globe were deserted. The tide was out and the boats lay canted on the mud. He
turned round to face the room. The moment of triumph faded quickly as it always did
and he began to feel flat. Against his better judgment he felt sorry for the women.
“How very convenient for you, Sergeant,” May Vinge said. “But you realize,
anyone could have been in my boat that night. Anyone.” She regarded the other
women stonily, awaiting support.
“And any one of us could have used the pliers,” Brenda Moore said. The look
she gave Mrs. Vinge was less than pleasant. Her face was pale.
“The pliers were found in your car, Mrs. Moore,” Dobbin pointed out. “And
you’re in the habit of locking the doors. And your friends have alibis, you see. You
don’t. You weren’t staying here with them that night. You were at the Globe. If
you’re suggesting one of them did the job, you’ll have to convince the jury they colluded.
That won’t be easy.”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Moore said, still gazing at the others. “I won’t need to convince
any jury. I can dispose of that aspect here and now.”
“Brenda!” Mrs. Vinge snapped. “Be careful! You don’t have to say anything!”
“Really, May. You want me to take the rap for you people? I don’t think so.
Friendship can only go so far. I’ll say what I have to say.”
Janine Richards wailed, “Oh, my God!” White faced, she stared at Mrs.
Moore. “We agreed! We’re all in this together, Brenda!”
“The three of you are in this together. You can count me out.” Mrs. Moore
turned to Devoran. “You see, Sergeant, I have an alibi of my own. When I left this
apartment on the Saturday night in question, I didn’t need my car so I left the keys here.
A certain gentleman was waiting for me outside. We walked to the Globe together, and
we spent the night together. I’m sure he will bear me out, if necessary.”
“She’s lying!” Janine Richards squealed.
Anthea Lee said nothing, but murder was in her eyes.
May Vinge said coldly, “You planned it right from the start, didn’t you, Brenda?
That’s why you opted out of sleeping here with us. This was your escape route if anything
went wrong.”
“And it looks like I needed it. You were going to drop me in the shit, weren’t
you? You were going to let the Sergeant think I’d made the device myself, with my
own pliers. Well, to hell with you all, that’s what I say. You had access to the pliers as
well, and you could have made the device at any time. But I’m the one with the alibi.
Now you can do the explaining.”
SATURDAY MORNING: A MAJOR DISASTER
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
Devoran asked, “Was Mrs. Moore telling the truth, Mrs. Vinge?”
Back at Peterville RCMP offices, they sat in the bare white-walled interview
room on opposite sides of the table. Dobbin sat beside Devoran and a uniformed man
lounged against the wall. May Vinge’s lawyer sat beside her, neatly suited and alert.
He looked pretty damned competent, thought Devoran uneasily. May Vinge had been
cautioned and the tape recorder was running. Devoran regarded her intelligent face.
“I can’t help you there, Sergeant,” she said coolly. “It’s your job to test the veracity
of Brenda’s statement. And that goes for the rest of us.”
“We’ve had preliminary confirmation from the lab that Mrs. Moore’s pliers
were used on the plug. Given that, the inference is clear,” he said quietly. “In order to
install the device you had to break into the cabin, and in order to give the device a purpose,
you had to turn on the propane. Then you hid in your boat Sappho and when
you saw Slade enter his cabin you touched the ends of the wire to Sappho’s batteries.”
“I did not cause that explosion.”
“Are we playing with words here? Either you, Janine Richards or Anthea Lee
did. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me. And to the jury in due course,
I’d say.”
“We have our alibis. We were together all evening. Are you saying you don’t
believe us, Sergeant?”
“I’m saying I’m considering recommending that the three of you be charged
with conspiracy to murder Lionel Slade.”
“You don’t have to say anything, May,” the lawyer said quickly.
She shrugged as though Devoran’s threat was of no account. “We never set out
to murder, and we never committed murder. All we wanted was our money back, and
you say you’ve recovered that already.”
The door opened. Dobbin appeared and made frantic beckoning gestures toward
Devoran.
He ignored the interruption. Dobbin should know better than to interrupt an
interview. He turned back to May Vinge. “You had no thought of revenge, after Slade
caused your sister’s suicide? I find that very hard to believe.”
“Of course I thought of revenge. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But what the
hell could I do?”
“Maybe what you did do. Get together for a mutual alibi, then murder Slade.”
“No.”
“Brenda Moore may have something different to say. I get the impression she
doesn’t care for a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.”
“Brenda can say whatever the hell she likes.”
He sighed. He needed a break. Dobbin was still gesticulating wildly. “Excuse
me,” he said. “We’ll suspend the interview at ten thirty-four.” He stood and left the
room, closing the door behind him. Dobbin and Farquarson stood outside, looking
scared. “All right, Marsha. What is it?”
“I think I’ll let Ted explain,” she said, gulping nervously.
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
He stared at her. What was going on? “OK, Ted,” he said. “Make it good. I
was on a roll in there.”
The GI man held the sparking device. “I’m really sorry about this, Eric. I should
have spotted it earlier. But we’ve all taken a look and there’s no need to send it to Forensic
in Victoria. See?”
Devoran took the device and examined it closely. An ordinary electrical plug
with the prongs bent toward each other so that they almost touched. Both prongs were
blackened with soot from the explosion and fire, but faint scratches could be discerned
on the outer side of each prong, the result of being gripped by Brenda Moore’s pliers.
“OK,” he said. “Can you see something I can’t?”
Farquarson said, “Uh, there’s no sign of arcing, Eric. The inside of each prong
is as smooth as when it came from the factory. If these prongs had had been fed with
the current from a boat battery, we’d have seen some damage at the tips. A little spot
of melting. A change of shape on the surface. But there’s nothing like that.”
Devoran’s heart sank bootwards. “Are you saying this gadget wasn’t used to
blow up the Ocean Dream?”
“I guess that’s what we’re saying.”
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Our goddamned case has collapsed, Marsha. What
the hell is Lockhart going to say? He’ll never be satisfied with a charge of breaking and
entering a goddamned boat. He’s got the scent of blood in his nostrils and we’re going
to disappoint him!”
THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: THE PLOT REVEALED
As the door opened Mrs. Rooke-Challenger eyed the Vinge woman searchingly. Yes,
her face wore an expression of guilt and apprehension. Mrs. Rooke-Challenger had
seen just such an expression on the face of her house-boy many years ago when she
confronted him over a missing bottle of scotch. She’d never forgotten that look. Now
was the time to strike, when the enemy was rocking back on her heels.
“Aha!”
“Yes, Mrs. Rooke-Challenger?”
“Do you intend to invite me in?”
“I didn’t, but….” The woman uttered an exaggerated sigh of resignation and
stepped aside. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for some days, Mrs. Vinge. I understand
they’ve released you and your friends, and that’s all the police will tell me. It gives me
to understand you have not been charged with murder. Little do they know!” Mrs.
Rooke-Challenger seated herself without invitation, prepared for a long stay. Vinge
was a worthy opponent, and she was looking forward to the coming conflict.
“If you’ve come to tell me something, then tell me. If not, then please leave.
You’ve annoyed me and my friends quite enough already.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
“I shall be glad if you will give me the address of the head office of the James
Spooner Appreciation Society. After much consideration I have decided to report last
Friday’s appalling example of bad manners to the relevant authorities.”
“I don’t have the address.”
“Then where may I obtain it?”
“God knows. Perhaps Brenda has it. Come back on Friday night. We’ll be
having a meeting.”
“An emergency meeting, I’ll be bound!”
“Just an ordinary meeting, such as we often have.”
The old lady reached into her capacious purse. “Let us agree that the preliminaries
are over. Now, I am returning this item which I picked up by accident when I
was last here.” She placed the notebook on the table, watching the Vinge face. Did the
wretched woman blanch? It certainly looked like it.
“That’s Brenda’s notebook. We’ve been looking everywhere for it.”
“Well, now you have it back. Perhaps you can tell me the significance of these
hieroglyphics on the last page.”
“That’s Brenda’s recipe for Chicken à la King.”
“As I thought. And as you see, the rest of the book is empty. And yet only last
Friday, your friend pretended to read some piffling Spooner report out of it. So where
is that report now? Take the book and show me.”
“I will not. It’s Brenda’s notebook and I know nothing about the contents.
Really, I’ve had enough of this. Now please leave, Mrs. Rooke-Challenger!”
“You may keep the notebook. It has served its purpose. I think we have established
that there is no such thing as a national James Spooner Appreciation Society.
Now we must move on.”
“We will not move on!” The Vinge woman’s voice became shrill as she neared
breaking point. “Just who do you think you are, Mrs. Rooke-Challenger? Get out of
here before I call the police! I can only assume that your relationship to Sergeant
Devoran has turned your head.”
Mrs. Rooke-Challenger gasped. The nerve of the woman! “My son-in-law has
no qualities of sufficient value to turn my head, I assure you!”
The Vinge’s hand hovered over the phone. “You’re just a silly old woman playing
at detectives,” she shouted, “and I’ve had enough! Get out!”
Now was the time to play the trump card. Again Mrs. Rooke-Challenger
reached into her purse. “You have it wrong, Mrs. Vinge. Actually, I’m a silly old
woman playing at blackmail.”
And she placed a small video tape cassette on the table.
“Just what’s that supposed to be?”
“All in good time.” Mrs. Rooke-Challenger settled herself back. “I direct your
attention to the night of last Sunday, when this tape was made.”
“All right, you’ve directed it.”
“Be aware that I was in Kingcombe Wood when you and your friends were
blundering about making that appalling racket last Sunday night. I recognized your view
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
halloos as you hounded Wilfred Ferris over the cliff to his death. Oh, yes, you may well
turn pale.”
“It was you who fired the gun?”
“It was indeed, after you’d made sleep impossible with your infernal din. And
I’ll tell you something else, too. I observed you in your boat an hour later, skulking
around the nearby waters. Good God, woman, how many irons do you have in the
fire?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about smuggling, woman. I’m talking about a secret rendezvous
under cover of darkness. I’m talking about addiction and young lives ruined. I’m talking
about derelicts on skid row. Have you any idea of the misery cause by the greed of
such as you?”
“So you saw me on the water that night.”
“More. I videotaped you on the water that night. It’s quite amazing, the capabilities
of these digital camcorders. Your boat showed up very clearly.”
The wretched woman walked over to the window and looked down at the inlet
and the carefree customers sitting in the sun outside the Globe. After a long silence she
shrugged and said, “May I offer you a little drinkie, Mrs. Rooke-Challenger?”
“The time has come for straight talking?”
“I think so.” She busied herself with bottle and glasses. “In the past you’ve
been very free with your talk of murder, but you haven’t told me what my motive for
killing Slade might be. Perhaps you don’t know that my sister committed suicide as a
result of his swindling her out of every cent she owned.”
“I have recently become cognizant of that. You have my sympathy. If I’d been
in your position I should likely have murdered the damned fellow too, and I don’t mind
admitting it.” She accepted a glass of gin and tonic, sipped and nodded approvingly.
“But I was not in your position.”
“You’re a woman after my own heart in some ways, Mrs. Rooke-Challenger.
You take a pragmatic view of right and wrong, I think.”
This was more like it, thought Mrs. Rooke-Challenger. The Vinge was making
overtures. A full confession would soon be forthcoming. “I like to think I am possessed
of a wealth of experience, which has led me to question facile assumptions based on
liberal philosophies.”
“Good. All right, I’ll keep this brief. You know that Lionel Slade preyed on
widows and elderly women whom he saw as ready-made victims for his financial scam.
Well, a few of us decided something had to be done about it. What I am about to tell
you is in the strictest confidence, of course.”
“Of course.”
“The first thing we did was to hire a private detective to keep an eye on him.
Wilf Ferris. And all went well at first. Ferris found out Slade intended to sail off into
the wide blue yonder with our money and the girl Sutcliffe. Real name Sturgess, I believe.
He told us Slade had closed his bank accounts in Victoria, and he followed him
to Noss Cove.
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
“So it was reasonable to assume that Slade had cash and negotiable instruments
on board ready for the voyage. We saw the chance to recover our money, but we also
wanted to punish him. We wanted to destroy his dream of a blissful future on some Pacific
island with a dusky maiden. We had nothing against the dusky maiden, but she
was a fool to have become involved in the first place. We wanted to smash Slade.”
“Understandable, my dear.”
“Everything Slade owned in the world was sitting at the dock in Noss Cove by
then. I’d moved in here on a six-month lease. The ridiculous James Spooner Society
had been founded. We had to take Ferris into our confidence, of course. We were
waiting for him to give us the word the coast was clear, then we’d break into the boat
and take our money. Then we’d destroy the boat.
“But odd things started happening. Slade’s boat toppled over on the ways and
he had a narrow escape. It was nothing to do with us, but it put him on his guard. Then
there was that strange sinking episode. Again, we played no part in it. But he became
very cautious. For days after that, either he or the girl was always aboard.
“And then came the weekend when it all happened. Ferris told us Slade and
the girl intended to spend the night away from the boat. This was our first chance, and
we felt it might be our only chance. So on Saturday evening the members of the James
Spooner Appreciation Society held a meeting and went through a certain ritual to determine
who should do the deed.
“So one of us, who shall remain nameless, visited the marina at around three
o’clock in the morning. The hour had been recommended by Ferris. The coast appeared
to be clear, and our representative broke into the Ocean Dream. She searched
the boat from stem to stern. But she didn’t find the money, in whatever form it might
be.”
“It had already been stolen by the Serendipity pair.”
“So we’ve since heard. There followed a period of despair. Our representative
wept and she agonized. She wondered whether to go back and consult with the
others. But in the end she decided to go ahead and destroy the boat as planned while
she had the chance, secure in the knowledge that the money was not aboard. She
turned on the Ocean Dream’s propane stove, left the little sparking device we’d previously
put together, trailed wires back to my boat Sappho, then went aboard and waited
while the gas built up in the Ocean Dream.
“Why didn’t you just soak the damned boat in gasoline?”
“We wanted it to look like an accident. Burners left on. A leak in the line
somewhere. Whatever. People are always ready to believe accidents with propane
and if nobody’s hurt you don’t get too many questions. Anyway, by daybreak our representative
decided the time had come. She touched the wires to the battery terminals.
Nothing happened. Either the battery was flat or we’d miscalculated the gap on the
sparking device — or possibly the propane hadn’t built up enough to reach the device.
She’d have to abort. Maybe there’d be another time. She tried to reel the wire in, but
it wouldn’t come. The plug had jammed somewhere in the Ocean Dream’s cabin.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
“So our representative continued to lie low, wondering what the hell to do next.
It was daylight. She couldn’t go aboard the Ocean Dream and try to recover the device;
she might be seen. So she decided to wander innocently along the docks trailing
the wire in the water and drop it somewhere away from my boat. Then she would leave
an unsigned note at the marina office saying there was a smell of propane around and let
Duffy deal with it when he arrived, which should be in about fifteen minutes. That way
nobody would get hurt, but it was a disaster for us because when Slade heard about it
he’d be on his guard for ever more.”
“But Duffy didn’t deal with the smell.”
“Exactly, because someone removed the note. We assumed it was Ferris.
Anyway, our representative hurried back to the apartment and in due course put in appearance
at the Home Invasion lecture, together with the rest of the James Spooner Society.
And while we were there, Slade managed to blow himself up somehow.
“And all the time that little rat Ferris was hidden in the cockpit of another boat
with his digital video camera.”
THE SAME WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: HOW FERRIS DIED
Mrs. Rooke-Challenger had warmed to this bereaved and misunderstood woman. “So
I was correct in my supposition about that fellow Ferris. He had the wherewithal to
blackmail you. I take it you eliminated him that night in Kingcombe Wood, my dear?”
“In a manner of speaking. He was a horrible little man, and there was no way
we would pay him off. He’d have made a copy of his tape and we’d have had him on
our backs for the rest of our lives. So we discussed it, and it emerged that we were
unanimous. Looking back on it now I find it hard to believe what we decided — and I
doubt if we could have gone through with it when the crunch came. We were four respectable
women, for God’s sake, plo tting murder.”
“In a good cause, I would venture to say.”
“So we told Ferris we’d meet his demands. We told him we had to get the
money from Victoria, but we’d be back by the evening. I told him I was moving out of
the apartment that same day now that our time in Noss Cove was over, so we’d meet
him at the Globe at nine o’clock in the evening. That didn’t suit him at all, as we’d expected.
He didn’t want plainclothes police planted among the customers. He was
nervous and suspicious, wondering if it was a trap. And tell the truth, it might have
been. We still had time to come clean with the police.
“He said he’d make the exchange further along Waterside Road, in the dark.
The tape for the cash. One of us was to walk from the Globe toward the Point, and
he’d be watching from among the trees on the hillside. Our envoy was to be swinging a
flashlight and whistling Old Man River, never mind why. And, most importantly, alone.
“We selected our envoy, but we also selected our potential killer, who would
be lurking in Kingcombe Wood armed with a short iron bar. Somehow or other she
would get in behind Ferris and hit him over the head, then she and the envoy would drag
the unconscious body to the bank of the inlet and roll him over. It was a stupid scheme,
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
but we were desperate, you understand? And Ferris would never expect violence. He
saw us as a bunch of pathetic old ladies.
“Came the night. Our envoy strolled along Waterside Road in the dark, carrying
an envelope stuffed with newspapers, waving a flashlight and whistling. Our designated
killer, waiting nervously up among the trees, heard her coming. Then to her horror
she became aware of a presence creeping up from behind. She screamed in fright,
thinking she was about the be attacked. It was Ferris, who coincidentally had chosen a
spot nearby, and apparently he hadn’t seen her because he panicked too and went ga lloping
off down the hill, cannoning into trees and bellowing with fear. Our designated
killer ran after him. Whether Ferris thought she was that policewoman Dobbin, or some
night creature his limited imagination had conjured up, we’ll never know. He reached
the road and ran slap into our envoy, who herself had taken fright at the commotion on
the hill, switched off the flashlight, stopped whistling and tried to melt into the darkness.
The envoy screamed. A shotgun went off with a hell of a bang.”
“That would have been I,” said Mrs. Rooke-Challenger thoughtfully.
“Ferris bolted onwards, still yelling, probably thinking we were trying to shoot
him. We heard him crash into that bench near the cliff and howl; I guess he fell. Then
he was off and running again, and gave a different kind of yell. And suddenly everything
went quiet.”
“He’d gone over the edge?”
“At first it seemed the answer to everything. After a while we recovered our
collective composure, crept to the edge of the cliff and shone the flashlight down. He
was lying on a ledge and his eyes were open staring up at us accusingly, I thought. And
as we watched he twitched and rolled off the ledge and landed in the water with a huge
splash, face down. It gave us a hell of a fright. I guess we thought he was going to start
swimming. But he didn’t move again, and we realized he was dead. At first it was a big
relief. It looked like an accident, in fact it was an accident. But then Brenda brought us
down to earth.
“‘The little bastard’s still got the tape,’ she said.
“You can imagine how we felt. We’d forgotten all about the tape in the excitement
of the past few minutes. We’d been thinking everything was over, but there was
still work to be done. We were tired, we were no longer young, and there was no way
we could have climbed down the cliff, still less got back up again.”
Mrs. Rooke-Challenger said, “In my experience you need a rope with one end
made fast to that bench.”
“We had no rope. And the tide was rising, and the body was beginning to drift
away from the base of the cliff. There was only one answer. I had to get back to the
marina and bring Sappho out to get that tape from the body. It was a goddamned
nightmare, I can tell you. You saw me out there. And it was a waste of time anyway.
The tape wasn’t on the body. God knows where it is. Maybe there never was a tape.
Maybe it was all bluff.”
The lights at the Globe Inn were shining through the gloom as she finished her
story. She rose, switched on the lights and drew the curtains.
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 20
“So that’s it,” Mrs. Rooke-Challenger murmured. It had been a story of intrigue,
deceit, treachery and violent death calculated to delight even the stuffiest dullard.
She felt uplifted and full of sympathy for the adventurous band of women. “You have
been through a difficult time, my dear.”
“Oh, God, tell me about it.” May was busy herself at the sideboard, not for the
first time in the last couple of hours. “Time for another little drinkie. Same again, Adelaide?”
What a pleasant occasion this was turning into! “A scotch and soda would be
very acceptable now, May.” Mrs. Rooke-Challenger had a rigid rule never to drink
scotch until the sun was over the yardarm. Until then, she drank gin and tonic. She
took a sip and leaned back with a sigh of contentment. “That is a most fascinating story,
my dear.”
“It has a significant aspect that I don’t think has escaped you.”
“Is that so.” Mrs. Rooke-Challenger remained noncommittal.
“A little while ago you suggested that my friends and I hounded Ferris to his
death. That was your expression, I think. But on the contrary, I think it was probably
your shotgun blast that scared the silly little man into bolting blindly.”
“Who knows, May? Who will ever know? Fortunately Sergeant Devoran is in
charge. He is the archetypal baffled policeman. Have no fear.”
Дата добавления: 2015-10-21; просмотров: 28 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |