A Question of Hats, page 5
‘Hear what?’ said Robert breathlessly.
‘It was a clang, like iron.’
‘Like these iron doors on the big tombs, you mean?’
‘No, course not,’ said Dick, but he frowned and glanced around before he went back to work.
Behind the tree nearby the watchers began to breathe again. Angela was furious with herself for having accidentally clanged her heel against the spade William had brought, but it seemed no harm had been done. The Toadvines were concentrating on the job at hand, and Angela decided it was high time to fetch the police. Before she could communicate this to William, however, there came an excited grunt from Dick, and an exclamation from Robert, and they stopped digging.
‘This must be it!’ said Robert. They both bent over the hole, which was perhaps two feet deep by this time, and Dick scraped at something with his spade.
‘That’s the box, just like he described it,’ he said. ‘Dig round it and let’s get it out. Careful, it’ll be heavy.’
‘What do we do now, ma’am?’ whispered William, as the brothers set to with greater alacrity. ‘They’ll have it dug up in a minute. It’s too late to call the police now. Do you have your gun?’
‘No,’ said Angela with a grimace at her own lack of forethought. ‘It didn’t occur to me to bring it.’
‘Pity. It would have come in handy right around now.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do, so we’ll just have to go and call the police and risk their getting away. Now, I’ll go and look for a telephone box, and you stay here. Keep out of sight, but if they leave then watch to see where they go.’
‘It seems awfully tame,’ said William wistfully. He glanced across at where the Toadvine brothers were bickering over the best and quickest way to get the box out of the hole. ‘You know, I reckon I could take ’em both on.’
‘At once? I don’t think so. Bother! That spade!’
She had clanged her heel against it again. Both brothers stopped digging and looked up nervously.
‘That the sound you meant?’ said Robert.
‘Yes,’ says Dick.
‘You do hear about things that go on in graveyards,’ said Robert. ‘The dead don’t like being disturbed.’
‘We’re not disturbing them, are we? We’re digging next to the fence.’
‘Yes, but this is their house, so to speak. How would you like it if somebody walked in and started digging up your front parlour?’
‘I wouldn’t like it, and I’d say so, but then I can ’cause I’m not dead, am I? The dead don’t talk.’
‘How do you know?’ said Robert darkly, and resumed digging, but not without an occasional nervous glance around.
‘They seem a little on edge,’ murmured Angela. ‘Perhaps we can gain some time by encouraging them to leave without the gold. We’ll give them a fright. We may not have a gun, but we do have the element of surprise.’
‘Give them a fright? How? Pretend to be the dead rising from the grave, you mean?’ William looked sceptical.
‘Oh, nothing so fanciful. I think the police are far more likely to send them running. We’ll make a noise and shine a light, and you shout “Police!” and we’ll see if that doesn’t do the trick. Then we’ll call the real police and with any luck they’ll get here before the Toadvines pluck up the courage to come back.’
‘What if they don’t run off?’ said William.
‘Then we do,’ said Angela. ‘I’m willing to take a risk, but there’s no sense in being stupid. Now, ready? I’m going to bang the spade against that railing over there. You shine the torch and do the shouting.’
She went across to a low rail that surrounded an important-looking sarcophagus, glanced back to make sure that William was ready, and began to strike the spade repeatedly against the metal.
‘Police!’ shouted William as loudly as he could. ‘Stay where you are!’
He stepped forward, switched on his torch, and shone it in the faces of the two brothers. Robert Toadvine needed no further encouragement; he cast his spade aside and fled. Dick, however, was made of sterner stuff. He launched himself towards William and threw a punch at him. William dropped the torch and the two men began to tussle in the darkness. Under normal circumstances William would have wiped the floor with his adversary within seconds, but fighting in the dark is not the same as fighting in daylight, and he could not see well enough to gain the upper hand easily. Still, it was an uneven fight, and Dick would certainly have come off worst had he not, by sheer chance, thrown a lucky punch that caught William hard in the eye and made him see stars. As William diverted his energies temporarily into reciting with great accuracy every swear word he knew, Dick wisely decided that he had had enough of fighting, and made a bolt for it. Seeing that William was out of action for the next minute or two at least, Angela picked up the torch, and without thinking, set off in pursuit. Dick was making straight for the gate, but at the last minute he veered off the path and vanished among the gravestones. Angela wondered for a second why he had changed his mind, but then all became clear as she heard the sound of a disturbance and loud voices, and saw several men approaching with torches. Angela switched off her own torch so as not to draw attention to herself, then headed towards the spot from which Dick had disappeared. Most of the headstones in this part of the churchyard were not tall enough to conceal a man easily, and she saw no-one; he must have doubled back, she thought.
The beams of the approaching men’s torches swept the grounds as they passed the ruined church tower, and at that moment Angela saw a movement. It was Dick, standing concealed in a recess in the tower wall, waiting. Once the men had passed he would have a straight run to the gate. As quick as lightning, Angela stepped forward to block his way, then switched on her torch and shone it in his face. Dick gave a strangled cry and stepped back, screwing up his eyes against the dazzling light, then darted in the direction away from the gate. There was a thump as he collided with someone.
‘What’s all this, then?’ said a voice Angela recognized. In the torchlight she saw Sergeant Willis and a young constable struggling with Dick Toadvine. The fight was short but conclusive, and Dick was subdued and taken off.
‘Quick! Catch the other one!’ exclaimed Angela.
‘Don’t worry—Blenkinsop was too fast for him,’ said someone else, and Angela saw it was Inspector Jameson. ‘Hallo, Mrs. Marchmont. I might have known you wouldn’t want to miss all the fun.’
‘I thought you were in Southampton,’ said Angela.
‘I didn’t get that far. I started out, but quickly started to get the feeling that I’d been sent on a wild-goose chase, so I stopped to telephone Willis and find out whether there had been any developments at his end, and he gave me your message.’
‘You turned up just in time,’ said Angela. ‘Another few minutes and they’d have got away with the gold.’
‘Ah! Then it is here?’
‘So it seems,’ said Angela. She led Jameson and his men to where the Toadvines had been digging. ‘There you are, William. Nothing broken, I hope?’
‘Just a black eye, I think,’ he replied. ‘He caught me by surprise.’
Angela laughed at his disgust.
‘And—er—sorry about the language, ma’am.’
‘What language? I didn’t hear a thing,’ said Angela blandly. ‘Now, come and we’ll show the inspector what we’ve found.’
They all stood around and peered into the hole the Toadvines had dug. There was still a good deal of damp earth to shift, but the brothers had uncovered the top of a solid-looking wooden box.
‘I think these must be the goods, all right,’ said Jameson. ‘Denton, Glover, help me get this box out.’
After a little more digging and something of a struggle, the box was finally lifted out of the hole and prised open. They all crowded round to look inside. Whatever was in the box was wrapped in oilcloth. Jameson cut it open carefully.
‘I’m not an expert, but that certainly looks like gold to me,’ said Angela, as Jameson lifted out a heavy bar of metal that gave an unmistakable gleam in the torchlight.
‘Well,’ said the inspector with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘That’s a good night’s work and no mistake!’
He began giving orders to his men. There was much bustle and discussion of how best to remove the gold without risking its being stolen again. Angela and William judged that they would only be in the way from this point, and decided to beat a retreat. They left the graveyard and set off back to the Bentley. William’s eye was sore, but he was in remarkably cheerful spirits.
‘That was a good night’s work, wasn’t it, ma’am?’ he said, as he held the car door open for her.
‘Yes, I think it was, William,’ said Angela. ‘On the whole, despite Marthe’s misgivings I should say our night away from the flat was worth it. But my feet are very cold, and now I’d like to go home for that cocoa she promised us.’
Chapter Seven
Two days later Inspector Jameson came to drink tea and tell them the end of the story.
‘Dick and Robert have been very obliging,’ he said. ‘Each blames the other for their failure to get the gold, so they have been accusing each other, and we’ve got a nice little confession out of them. It seems you were right about the building work. Joe and his associates had buried the gold at the very back of St. Margaret’s churchyard, thinking it was bound to be safe there. And so it was, for several years—until one day Joe happened to read in the newspaper that the land next door had been sold and was to be built on very soon. He was in agonies, as he’d kept the secret of the gold’s whereabouts to himself for years, and had refused absolutely to give it up, but he knew now that he had no choice—either he had to tell someone the location or risk losing his ill-gotten riches for good. He wasn’t taking any chances, though. The only people he was prepared to reveal the secret to were his brothers, and even that was with great reluctance, since he knew exactly how far he could trust them, but all he could do was hope that family ties would prove a stronger force than his brothers’ greed.
‘He knew he was being closely watched by the authorities, and was aware that any letters he sent would be carefully scrutinized, so he didn’t dare send the information in writing. He was also too fat and unfit to escape from gaol on his own account, but he knew Harry Croft had something of the sort in mind, so he encouraged the attempt, and promised Croft a share of the loot if he managed it and passed on the message. As I’ve said, Croft’s none too bright, but he looked up to Joe Toadvine and he liked the idea of the money. Still, Joe wasn’t about to trust him with the full knowledge of where the gold was, so he made Croft memorize the location in number form, without telling him they were map directions.
‘Shortly afterwards Croft escaped and made straight for the Steed & Co. factory in Soho, as he’d been told. Unfortunately he didn’t have the sense to enter discreetly, but walked straight in through the front door. Luckily for the Toadvines the first person he met was Dick, who was surprised, but grasped the situation quickly and hustled him into Robert’s office, where he dutifully recited the coded message he’d been given. Just as he did so there came the sound of whistles outside, and the police descended on the place, and Croft began to panic. Naturally the Toadvines didn’t want to be found in company with him, so their immediate concern was to get him out of the building as soon as possible, but there was still the question of the message. Joe had instructed Croft not to allow Dick and Robert to write it down, and to remain with them until they had memorized it, but with the police outside there was no time for that, so quick as a flash Robert suggested they write it down on a blank receipt using nitrate of mercury—which was in plentiful supply around the factory—as invisible ink. Then Dick took Croft to another part of the building, and they waited until they thought it was safe for him to leave through a back window.
‘Meanwhile, Robert, who is slightly the quicker thinker of the two—although that’s not saying much—saw a way to cheat Dick and Joe out of the gold. He immediately guessed the numbers were map directions, and knew that to keep the treasure for himself he would need time to study the message at home, in private, where there would be no risk of Dick’s catching him in the act. So he decided to engage in a little subterfuge while his brother was helping Croft make his escape. He wrote down a series of numbers at random on another blank receipt, then took the receipt with the correct directions on it, grabbed a hat from the showroom, parcelled them both up in a hat box, addressed the parcel to his own home in Moult Street, and ran out into the street to look for a messenger. If the police stopped to question him in their search for Croft, he had all the appearance of a perfectly respectable hat-maker delivering a hat. He found a likely-looking boy, sent the parcel off with him, and went back inside. By the time Dick returned, Robert was sitting in his office quite innocently, with what Dick thought was the secret message on the desk in front of him.’
‘That was a cunning idea of Robert’s,’ said Angela. ‘It’s a pity for him that he addressed the parcel so carelessly and it came to me by mistake.’
‘Oh, yes. And in fact, that’s where his cunning ends. After that it all started to go wrong. When Dick returned he insisted on looking at the secret message immediately. He also recognized the numbers as map co-ordinates, and announced that he was going to fetch a map. Unluckily for Robert, the numbers he had written down at random indicated a spot in the middle of the North Sea, which immediately made Dick suspicious, although Robert swore the numbers were correct.
‘As soon as he could decently get away, Robert went home to Moult Street, where his mother had been staying with him while she recovered from an illness. Robert was dismayed to find that his parcel had not arrived, and in his shock and horror at having lost the vital piece of paper, accidentally blurted out to his mother the fact that there was a message from Joe in the missing box. At that Mrs. Toadvine, who by all accounts has had quite enough of her wayward sons’ behaviour over the years, told him what she thought of them all, and said it served them right and that she wanted no part of their crooked schemes.
‘I dare say Robert spent an uncomfortable enough evening, wondering what had happened to his precious hat box. At any rate, he went to work as normal the next day, resolving to go out and scour the streets for Shorty—and it was shortly afterwards that you, Mrs. Marchmont, turned up at his house in Moult Street with the very parcel he was looking for.’
‘Yes, and Mrs. Toadvine sent me packing. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I do now.’
‘She’d put up with a lot from her sons and her late husband over the years,’ said Jameson. ‘She was relieved that two of her sons at least seemed to have settled down into honest jobs, so you can imagine how she must have felt to find out that they were falling back into their old ways. I expect she thought you were an accomplice in the bullion robbery. Anyway, you departed, still in possession of the hat box containing the message, and having helpfully informed Mrs. Toadvine of your address.
‘Meanwhile, Dick Toadvine had been mulling over his suspicions of Robert, and had come to the conclusion that he’d been diddled. So that afternoon he sneaked away from work early and went to his brother’s house on Moult Street to speak to his mother and see if she knew anything. She did, and told him at length what she thought of him, his brothers, and his confederate in Mount Street who was no better than she ought to be for all her fine speaking. That was all he needed to hear, and he hot-footed it straight to your flat, anxious to get revenge on Robert and swipe the hat from under his nose. Not long after that, Robert returned home and was greeted with the same information Mrs. Toadvine had just given Dick. He, too, hurried here, but he was more wily, and brought with him a hat to offer you in exchange for the first one. When their plans failed they both tried burglary, and Dick succeeded—or so he thought, since, as you guessed, he stole the wrong hat.
‘After that, they gave up all attempts to retrieve the message from your flat, and decided to go and visit Joe in gaol directly and confess they’d lost the message. Instead of giving them the map co-ordinates again, he told them directly where it was. Then they left and gave us the slip. It’s just lucky you had that idea about the invisible ink, Mrs. Marchmont, or we’d have lost the gold for good.’
‘And so would Joe Toadvine, I expect,’ said Angela. ‘I don’t imagine Dick and Robert would have saved any of it for him.’
‘Probably not,’ agreed Jameson. ‘So, the gold is now safe, and no doubt in due course the brothers Toadvine will find themselves facing a charge of handling stolen goods. At any rate, they won’t be making any more hats for a while.’
Marthe, hovering in the background, muttered something that Angela thought sounded like ‘Dieu merci!’
Jameson looked at his watch and rose to go, promising to keep them apprised if any further interesting developments occurred.
‘Well!’ said Angela, after he had gone. ‘Things got a little confusing for a while, but it seems the situation has all been cleared up to everyone’s satisfaction. How is your eye, William?’
‘Much better, ma’am,’ he replied.
‘Splendid. Now—oh, is that the door? Who can it be?’
Marthe went to answer it. She returned carrying a large parcel shaped like a hat box.
‘Madame!’ she exclaimed, aghast. ‘They have sent you another hat! What are we to do?’
She stared at the box as though she thought it might contain a bomb.
‘At last! I wondered when it would arrive,’ said Angela, taking the parcel from her. ‘Don’t worry, Marthe. I ordered this one the other day from Rougier’s on Bond Street. I saw it in the window and couldn’t resist it. Look!’ She unwrapped it and brought out a smart spring hat in a tasteful rose pink. ‘No feathers, frills, lace, or messages in invisible ink. Perfectly smart and respectable, with the latest wide brim to hide all the wrinkles that are currently laying plans to swarm forth and ravage my face en masse the second I turn forty.’
