The Moving Toyshop. Edmund Crispin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ‘But I’m not Miss Scott.’

      ‘Oh.’ Fen gazed at the instrument in great dismay, as though he were expecting it to fall apart at any instant. ‘Who is that speaking, please?’

      ‘This is Mrs Wheatley. I’m afraid you have the wrong number.’

      ‘Why, so I have. Very stupid of me. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Good-bye.’ Fen seized the telephone directory and flipped over the pages.

      ‘Wheatley,’ he murmured. ‘Wheatley…Ah, here it is. Wheatley, Mrs J. H., 229 New Inn Hall Street, Oxford 07691. The lady seemed to be in very good health. And I suppose you realize, my dear Cadogan, that it might be any one of a thousand exchanges besides this?’

      Cadogan nodded wearily. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘It’s hopeless, really.’

      ‘Look here, did you go round to the back of the shop with the police? The way you got out?’

      ‘Actually, no.’

      ‘Well, we’ll do that now. I want to have a look at the place, anyway.’ Fen considered. ‘I’ve got a tutorial at ten, but that can be put off.’ He scribbled a message on the back of an envelope and propped it up on the mantelpiece. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll drive.’

      They drove. Driving with Fen was no pleasure to a man in Cadogan’s condition. It was all right in St Giles’ because St Giles’ is an immensely broad street where it is quite difficult to hit anything, except for the pedestrians who constantly scuttle across its expanses like startled hens, in a frantic and perilous gauntlet race. But they nearly smashed into a tradesman’s van in Broad Street, despite its width, they tore across the traffic lights by the King’s Arms just as they were changing, and they traversed Holywell Street and Long Wall Street in rather under a minute. Their eventual emergence into the thronged High Street Richard Cadogan describes as being by far the most horrifying episode of his entire adventure, for Fen was not the man to wait for anyone or anything. Cadogan stopped his eyes and ears and tried to meditate on the eternal verities. Yet somehow they did it, and were across Magdalen Bridge, and for the third time that morning he found himself in the Iffley Road.

      Fen brought Lily Christine III to a shuddering standstill some way away from the location of the phantom toyshop.

      ‘You’ve been here before,’ he pointed out. ‘Someone might recognize you.’ The car backfired. ‘I wish it wouldn’t do that…I’m going to spy out the land. Wait till I come back.’ He climbed out.

      ‘All right,’ said Cadogan. ‘You’ll find it quite easily. Just opposite that church.’

      ‘When I get back, we’ll go round behind the shop.’ Fen strode off with his customary vigour.

      The morning shopping rush had not yet begun, and the establishment of Winkworth, Family Grocer and Provisioner, was empty except for the grocer himself, a fat man swathed in priestly white, with a rotund and jolly face. Fen entered with a good deal of noise, observing, however, that the door did not squeak.

      ‘Good morning, sir,’ said the grocer amiably, ‘and what can I do for you?’

      ‘Oh,’ said Fen, who was looking curiously about him, ‘I want a pound of’ – he cast about in his mind for something suitable – ‘of sardines.’

      Manifestly the grocer was somewhat taken aback. ‘I’m afraid we don’t sell them by weight, sir.’

      ‘A tin of rice, then.’ Fen frowned accusingly.

      ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

      ‘Are you Mr Winkworth?’ Fen hastily dismissed the subject of purchases.

      ‘Why, no, sir. I’m only the manager here. It’s Miss Winkworth as owns the shop – Miss Alice Winkworth.’

      ‘Oh. May I see her?’

      ‘I’m afraid she’s away from Oxford at the moment.’

      ‘Oh. Does she live above here, then?’

      ‘No, sir.’ The man looked at him oddly. ‘No one lives above here. And now, about your purchases—’

      ‘I think I’ll leave them till later,’ said Fen blandly. ‘Much later,’ he added.

      ‘I shall be at your service any time, sir,’ the grocer answered magniloquently.

      ‘A pity’ – Fen watched the man closely – ‘a pity you don’t sell toys.’

      ‘Toys!’ the grocer ejaculated, and it was obvious that his astonishment was genuine. ‘Well, sir, it’s hardly likely you’d find toys in a grocer’s shop, is it?’

      ‘No, it isn’t, is it?’ said Fen cheerfully. ‘Nor dead bodies either. Good morning to you.’ He went out.

      ‘It’s no good,’ he told Cadogan, who was sitting in Lily Christine III, trying to adjust his bandage and staring in front of him. ‘I’m convinced that man knows nothing about it. Though he did behave rather queerly when I asked about the owner of the shop. A Miss Alice Winkworth, apparently.’

      Cadogan grunted ambiguously at this information. ‘Well, let’s go round to the back, if you think it will do any good.’ His tone indicated little confidence in this prospect.

      ‘And by the way,’ Fen added as they walked down the narrow, sloping alleyway which led to the back of the shops, ‘was there anyone about when you came with the police this morning?’

      ‘In the shop, you mean? No, no one. The police let themselves in with skeleton keys, or something. The door was locked by then.’

      They counted the creosoted wooden fences which marked off the little garden.

      ‘This is it,’ said Cadogan.

      ‘And someone’s been sick here,’ said Fen with distaste.

      ‘Yes, that was me.’ Cadogan peered in at the gate. The neglected overgrown enclosure, which had seemed so sinister in the half-light, looked quite ordinary now.

      ‘You see that small window?’ he said. ‘To the right of the front door? That’s the sort of closet place I got out of.’

      ‘Is it, now?’ Fen answered thoughtfully. ‘Let’s go and have a look at it.’

      The small window was still open, but it was higher from the ground than Cadogan had remembered, and even Fen, tall as he was, could not see inside. Somewhat disappointed they went on to the back door.

      ‘This is open, anyway,’ said Fen. Cadogan banged against a dustbin which stood beside it. ‘For goodness’ sake try to avoid making that terrible noise.’

      He moved inside with some caution, and Cadogan followed him. He was not very clear what they were supposed to be doing. There was a short corridor, with a kind of kitchen, untenanted, on the left, and the door of the closet, half open, on the right. From the shop in front came the murmur of voices and the bell of the cash register.

      But the closet contained cleaning things no longer. There were, instead, СКАЧАТЬ