Death of a Commuter (7 page)

“I can never quite understand why people who live in cheap houses in rows are supposed to be more
real
than any others.”

Sporlott laughed.

“I used the wrong word, perhaps. You're interested in Parador's suicide, I understand.”

“If it was suicide.”

“I'm afraid it was. He was sure he had cancer.”

“And had he?”

“Not according to every test we can apply. He had what one might call malignant gastritis. Result of semi-starvation in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. But you couldn't tell him that. We fell out over it. Terrible row, we had. We haven't spoken for six months. Pity, because I liked him and his wife. But this was an obsession.”

“He wasn't a man to quarrel with, I gather.”

“Oh, I don't know. He may have been vindictive in some cases. He just shut me out.”

“Unforgiving, though? If he had meant to leave you anything
in his will, do you think he'd have cut you out?”

Sporlott considered this.

“He wouldn't have left me anything in the first place. He had no reason to. But if he had—yes, I suppose he'd have changed it.”

“He was a private patient of yours?”

“Yes. He went to a colleague of mine after our row. Very good chap, Indian, Kumar Shant. Over at Buttsfield. He's managed, so far, to keep clear of the cancer issue. I see Elspeth from time to time and she tells me all about it. Parador's been suffering from heartburn and Kumar has just recently prescribed Buscapine. I don't know whether he had started taking it Perfectly harmless, anyway.”

“What about sleeping pills?”

“Never took any. Had a thing against them. ‘Take one of those,' he once told me, ‘and you've formed a habit'.”

“You never prescribed Opilactic for him then?”

“Certainly not. I'm against using antibiotics except in cases of real necessity.”

“I noticed Opilactic in the medicine cupboard in Thriver's bathroom tonight.”

“Really? I'm not surprised. Thriver has a most morbid interest in drugs and ailments.”

“You don't think you prescribed them?”

“It's possible. I do seem to remember his complaining of insomnia a year or so ago.”

“These were supplied by Scotter, a local chemist”

“Then I must have prescribed them. Scotter's a stickler for prescriptions.”

“Where do you think Parador got his?”

“Abroad, very likely. Perhaps he bought it in readiness. You'd be surprised to know how many people walk about with a means to end life handy.”

“So you have confidence in Scotter?”

“Absolutely. Painfully conscientious. He's a pompous stick, terribly class conscious and all that, but knows his job and sticks to the rules. You'll find him that not so rare thing, a Socialist
snob. Very defiantly as-good-as-you-are, against all class barriers, but can't help name-dropping and terribly pleased when he's asked somewhere to play bridge. Know the type?”

“Yes. But I want to meet this example of it.”

Carolus stood up. He felt vaguely unsatisfied as though Sporlott could have told him, without breach of professional confidence, a good deal more than he had chosen to, in spite of his frank manner.

“One piece of advice I'd like to give you,” said Sporlott as Carolus pulled on his coat.” Don't concentrate too much on the people in the villas. You'll hear a lot more from the remnants of the old working people. Not from my patients, the real workers, they don't give a damn who swallowed what But from the few who are stranded in the old town. There's a man named Boggett, for instance, who worked for Parador. I bet he knows more than all the ladies and gentlemen of the place put together. They're not with it, Deene. They still think I'm going to call on them in a brougham. People like Boggett talk and hear and remember. Moreover they see.”

As this was the advice which Carolus had been following all his professional life and intended to follow here, he was not profuse in his thanks.

He reached The Royal Oak to find Priggley ‘having a nightcap' in the public bar. Before he could protest Priggley put a whisky in front of him with exactly the right amount of soda, and smiled affably.

“There's quite a lot
about,”
Priggley said, as though there was no doubt about Carolus's interest in his achievements. “But it all seems rather tied up, if you know what I mean. Time will tell. How did you get on?”

“Tolerably.”

“There's a character here named Boggett you should meet. He worked for Parador—at least he was employed by him. Ginger-haired. Boozy. Never stops talking, chiefly about which he's got his eye on and what he could do with that one.”

“I've heard about him, but not of the amorous side of his character which you artlessly convey. It's too late to tackle him
now, I think. He'll keep, anyway. I've done quite enough in ten hours.”

But Boggett had other ideas. He lurched across in a sidelong way, his little red-rimmed eyes looking in no particular direction, and addressed Carolus.

“I been talking to your son,” he announced in a husky voice.

“This,” said Carolus with some asperity,” is
not
my son.”

“No. Didn't think he was,” said Boggett quickly. “He's all there, though. No flies on him, as you might say. He knows what he's doing. Know what he told me he's been up to this evening?”

“I'll believe anything,” sighed Carolus.

“Least said soonest mended,” agreed Boggett. “I'm not the one to tell tales out of school. I like a bit of what's-it myself. I'm no spoil-sport. See that one standing over there with no stockings on and her hair in a knot? I could do with a bit of that. Yes. I wouldn't mind that in front of a nice warm fire. That would be all right, that would.”

“You worked for Mr. Felix Parador, I believe?” said Carolus to cut short these reflections.

Boggett's eyes and mind were brought into focus.

“Certainly I did. I was his head gardener for a good many years, and a better gentleman I couldn't wish to meet. I can't say the same of Ur, though. If I was to tell you …”

“Why don't you?”

“Wouldn't do. Not if you knew all I know. I don't say there was anything in it, mind you. You mustn't only think the worst of people. But what I've seen in the day-time's enough, never mind what went on at night when I wasn't there.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Nothing that you could really say anything about whatever you might think. But it doesn't always mean because a man's a parson and preaching about temptation in the church on Sunday he's any better than anyone else. Does it? I can't see why it should take him a couple of hours to ask for a subscription. I'd give him Hopelady. Then what about that Rumble? Quiet sort of fellow he is. But I know some of these quiet ones. He doesn't go to her now because she's got her young niece there staying with
her but that's not to say she doesn't go to him, with him all alone in the house. See what I mean? Nor I wouldn't put Thriver above it”

“Above what?”

“What I'm talking about I wouldn't trust him further than I could see him, not with her about.”

Carolus began to wonder where this scandalous catalogue would end.

“You wouldn't think anything of those Limpoles, would you? Chapel and that. But I've seen the younger one go off in the car with her or may I be struck dead. Makes you think, doesn't it?”

“No,” said Carolus. “Where were you the night Mr. Parador died, Boggett?”

“Where was I? Why in here, of course, till closing time.”

“What was closing time that night?”

“Half past ten. This silly bee always packs up right on the dot. It's no good asking for another. Time gentlemen, please, he says and it is time. What do you think of that?”

“Did you go straight home?”

“Well, I may have larked about a little time. There was a party in here that night…”

“A party?”

“I mean a young woman who was staying with her sister and had to get home in case they locked her out. But I was in by eleven o'clock. I live just along at the corner.”

“Were you disturbed that night at all?”

“It's a funny thing you should ask me that I told several about it but the police never asked me anything. Soon after I got in I heard two cars go by, coming out of Manor Lane. There's not much traffic at that time and I couldn't help wondering. They seemed to be following one another. They both turned round into the main road and went off.”

“In which direction?”

“Buttsfield way. The wife was in bed and snoring like an old hippo but I didn't seem to be able to get to sleep that night. I must have dozed off because I was woken up a couple of hours
later, or that's what it seemed, by a noise of car engines again, or at least that's what I thought it was.”

“Don't you get traffic along that main road at night?”

“Very little. It's cross-country like. The London road's over the other side of the town. Anyway, there's traffic that wakes you up and traffic that doesn't. This did and it may be because I was thinking of the other, the two cars that came out of Manor Lane. Only this was different It was one car and a motor-bike. First the car, then after a little bit the motor-bike. They both turned into Manor Road. Then after a few minutes more, blow me if that car didn't come out again and the motor-bike after it I thought, I've had enough of this, I thought They can chase one another round all night long for all I care. I'm going to sleep. So I got up and shut the window. That's all I heard.”

Rupert Priggley had thoughtfully been over to the bar for three more drinks and in a moment the fringe of Boggett's moustache had to be wiped.

“Who lives in Manor Lane?” Carolus asked him. Well, me to begin with,” said Boggett. “You must have seen my house? It used to be the lodge. Then there's Dogman's. Theirs is that house with the wisteria on it Further on you come to Limpoles' two brothers and a sister and fine old fights you hear coming out of there if one of them's used a spoonful of sugar more than the others. Then there's what they call the Vicarage where those Hopeladys live, though the real Vicarage has been pulled down. Up the other end, opposite side to what the Manor's on, there's an old house been there donkey's years where Scotter the chemist lives, and the joke of it is he's married to my sister. You should have seen their faces when he bought that house. Fact, all the people from this end of the town live in Manor Lane. The only other two are Thriver and Rumble, and they live up Lower Manor Lane, which is a continuation of it across the main road. Here, look at this just come in.” Boggett gave Priggley a nudge which nearly sent him off balance. “I couldn't half do with a bit of that. I shall have to see about it That's what I call something. You wouldn't see me for a week if I got my hands on that lot.”

“Bit broad in the beam, isn't she?” said Priggley in the manner of a professional critic.

“Just what you want, my boy, that is. The very thing. What wouldn't I give for it, eh? Exactly my handwriting…”

“You were telling me that you worked for Mr. Parador,” said Carolus priggishly. The bar would close in ten minutes and he felt Boggett's attention slipping.

“Yes. Yes. I did. Look at those Bristols…”

“Were you surprised when you heard about his death?”

“Surprised? I couldn't believe it. I still don't. Not that he did for himself. There's a lot more than meets the eye in this. I daresay if the truth were told I knew him better than anyone and I say he never done it. Never in a million years.”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“Ah, now you're asking me. But I think someone who wanted him out of the way did for him somehow we can't know about. Doctors don't know everything, you know. Cor, look at her now. She'll have her skirt round her waist in a minute.”

“Did your wife work for Mr. and Mrs. Parador, too?”

“What Ur? No thank you. Not in the same place where I worked. I told her that. It's bad enough you spying on me at night without the daytime, too, I told her. No, she worked for Rumble. She was there when his wife died two years ago. Well, it suits her. No one behind her all day wanting to know why this wasn't done. It's not like the old days when there wasn't the work. They have to take what help they can get now. And I will say this, Rumble's one to appreciate it. He passed me the other day and remarked on it. ‘What I should do without Mrs. Boggett,' he said, ‘I don't know.' Nor don't I. A man alone in the house. Look she's having another one. I bet that young fellow with her gets somewhere tonight. I know I would. I'd just about…”

“But Mrs. Parador must have some help?”

“Oh yes. She's got a couple of women come up from the new end of town. I don't know why they bother. Their husbands are knocking up the best part of twenty quid a week each on the building. Greedy, I suppose. They're neighbours, see, and like
going out together. She only has them for the morning, and once in a while in the afternoon, if they feel like it. But if you want to know all about that you come and see the wife about it. She can tell you, if she likes. She sees all that goes on at Rumble's and she knows these two that work at Parador's. Only thing is she gets tired out before she comes home and doesn't want to talk about anything.”

There was a pause, during which levels sank.

“I was looking at that handbag of yours,” said Boggett “The guv'nor had one like that. I noticed it when you came in.”

“Did he? Lot of these about now,” said Carolus vaguely. Then he turned the subject.

“I believe Miss Thriver used to do some secretarial work for Mr. Parador?”

“Yes, but I couldn't fancy that,” said Boggett. “Not that, I couldn't fancy. Too much like those that read things out on the telly. She's as broad as she's long, too. Maybe suit some, but I said the first time I saw her, I said, that's not my line of country. Now if she was anything like that one over there …”