Tinplate Read online

  I soon realized it wasn’t just the letters that were depressing me. For when I analysed my situation, it was clear I had no real leads at all to the lost toys, not a shred of real evidence against anybody. Rankin seemed to be as pure as the driven snow, or was he? Vivian Stone, crooked though he no doubt was, did not really seem the type to get involved in a toy heist that, if discovered, could lead to the collapse of every one of his jewellery stores from Bournemouth to Tel-Aviv. Yet he obviously was acquisitive, and he did have a red Ferrari. But his wife was certainly not Quinky from St Paul de Vence.

  If Monsieur Vincent was the thief, then I knew as much about people as I did about nuclear physics. Nevertheless, every good whodunnit I had ever read ended up with the one you least expect being the baddie. So Monsieur Vincent had to remain on my list, as a Riviera con-man with a beautiful mistress with a taste for fast cars.

  And then there was the man I had come to love to hate from just seeing him twice. No, that’s not true: I disliked him the first instant I saw him in the church hall. Randolph Treasure. Rich, spoilt, arrogant, overbearing, clever, emotional and ambidextrous. I tried, unsuccessfully, to separate out my envy and my anger. He could have done it, certainly, and his girlfriend had said he was fanatical about toys. And yet he was not on my list of great and avid toy collectors. I knew of him only as an occasional purchaser, so it did not seem all that likely that, fanatical by nature or not, he would have gone hellbent after the Vincent collection. Or would he? I was getting very confused. And that’s without bothering about Treasure’s attitude to recovering the Spitfire, which I could not fathom at all. I looked over and saw Bing had flipped a tiny crab out of a pool and onto its back with his paw. I had a feeling Treasure might do that to me one day, unless I could get something on him first.

  I was about to get up and go when I saw a figure back over where the little road drops down to the steps onto the beach. A girl figure. She stopped near the water’s edge and quickly doffed her dress, revealing a dramatically shaped body in a whisper of a bikini. The next moment she was in the water and swimming powerfully. I admired her courage at this time of year. I’d seen enough to know who she was, and that she was even more attractive than I had at first thought. I was about to pick up Bing and move over to where she had left her dress and sandals, when I changed my mind. Somehow I felt I needed to know a little more about Mr Treasure from other sources before I began drilling Arabella’s little well. But I had the feeling she had come bathing on this particular beach for a reason, otherwise Lulworth Cove would have been her obvious choice for an early-morning swim. One day soon I would probably know the reason, but not quite yet. I gathered up Bing and crept quietly off the beach and back up the hill while her delectable body was still being kissed by the waves. Hell, I had will-power.

  *

  My old mate at the Western Gazette came through just before eleven, while I was sitting in my shop waiting for something to turn up — anything. I took down what he had to say on an old advertising agency pad. This is what I wrote:

  Randolph Louis (!) T. Born Ilminster, Som. 1930. Street Court School, Barrington, then Trenton. Oxford. Christ Church. Law. No recorded Nat. Service. Married once. ’75. Veronica Charlotte Telling. Left ’81. Rumour — to lover. Lausanne. Three farms. 1700 acres. Lloyds underwriter. Clubs: Reform. RAC. President of S. Dorset Soc. of Marksmen, (?) and Historic Homes Trust. Interests. Antiques. And Sex.

  I’d better point out that the Western Gazette didn’t add the last two words. I did.

  In between selling two mediocre Dinkies to a taxi-driver, and a rather nice Tootsietoy La Salle coupe to a hotel owner from Swanage (£135 — not bad), I read and re-read my notes. I decided I would like to meet Mrs Veronica Charlotte Treasure. She, of all people, would know Treasure backwards, and in all sorts of directions. But if she was still in Lausanne the prospect was extremely remote. I did not have the time or the money to go hunting for her.

  So I did not seem to be really any further forward. And if Treasure was really my sworn enemy, then I did not like the sound of the S. Dorset Society of Marksmen. I’d rather he had been nutty about wild flowers. And I was annoyed that Treasure had been to Oxford, of all places, and to a better and richer college than mine. (I spent three delirious years at Exeter College, physically only half a mile away from Christ Church but a million miles away socially.) I had only just about heard of Trenton — it was one of those minor, yet expensive public schools where you only go if your father went too. His prep school I’d never heard of. So much for all that.

  I now had only Deborah to rely on, and I was just beginning to think I missed a trick not doing a From Here to Eternity with dear Arabella on the beach when, would you believe, Mr Rankin came into the shop. His tan still glowed, lucky man.

  ‘Just passing,’ he extended his hand, ‘a reciprocal visit, you might say, from a confirmed old toy buff.’

  I asked after his wife. She was fine, apparently, but missing the heat of South Africa. I couldn’t tell him that, right now, I found England quite hot enough for me. Soon he came around to ‘the real point of my visit, Mr Marklin.’ He fingered his pepper-and-salt colonel’s moustache.

  ‘Toys?’ I smiled.

  ‘Battleships,’ he replied. And my smile disappeared, for Mr Rankin’s extensive toy collection had embraced cars, buses, lorries, aircraft, tractors, you name it — everything except ships. Why the interest all of a sudden? My mind went immediately to the prize item in the missing Vincent collection.

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested in ships, Mr Rankin,’ I said in as nonchalant a voice as possible.

  ‘I haven’t been up to now,’ he replied, strolling around my shop, gazing at my stock, almost like a professional valuer earning his crust. (It’s funny with collectors. Even if they’ve got the very same toys as another collector they’ll often be just as interested in looking at them as different toys they haven’t yet acquired. And certainly Rankin had almost everything I’d got in my shop.)

  I came out from behind the counter. ‘What’s tempting you to change?’ I probed gently.

  He chuckled. ‘Oh, when you’ve got as many toys as I have, Mr Marklin, it’s hard to add any more decent pieces to round out the collection. So I thought I’d get into boats. Only tinplate, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed, as if one would be struck dead for buying a ship in any other material.

  ‘Bought a new Sutcliffe Valiant battleship yesterday. Found it still in stock in a toy shop in Bournemouth,’ he beamed. ‘It’s a start; and a friend of mine is selling me a Hornby Curlew, green and cream.’

  ‘But that’s not what you would really like, is it?’ I probed further.

  ‘Of course not, Mr Marklin. It’s those magnificent boats the Germans made from the turn of the century I want to get eventually. You know, by Bing, Carette, and so on …’ He gave a little snort as if he were taking snuff. ‘… and especially by your namesake, sir, Marklin.’

  If I’d been sitting down, I’d have sat bolt upright. Marklin’s battleships were steaming into my life a little too often.

  ‘I’m sorry. Boats are very hard to come by.’ I explained the obvious — that clockwork boats were used in water, and rusted like mad, especially if it were sea water, so few had survived over the years compared with other old toys. And all the while, I watched his eyes.

  ‘I don’t mind the cost, Mr Marklin. Just thought I’d pop in and tip you off that I was now in the market.’ His eyes gave nothing away.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll keep a look out. But I haven’t got anything like that at the moment, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Great shame so few survived, isn’t it? My telephone number’s in the book, so give me a ring if you hear of anything.’

  I nodded, and he buttoned up his dark blue blazer and made for the door. ‘I’d give anything for one of those classic ships in mint condition.’ He pulled at his moustache and was gone.

  I leant back against the counter and wondered whether he would
do anything to get one … Had he been probing, or just making an innocent enquiry? And if it was the former, what was he probing to find out? How far I had got with my enquiries? Curses. Why had he come in and further muddled my already murky sleuthing mind just when I thought I was narrowing things down a bit? Bing jumped on the counter and rubbed himself against my back. I turned to him.

  ‘You know, Bing, it could turn out to be like Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. They’re all in it together — a massive conspiracy to make me look a fool.’

  But all I got from Bing was a purr, which was as indecipherable to me as KGB code. I was about to give him a bowl of Whiskas, when I heard the unmistakable shriek of Gus Tribble’s Ford’s brakes outside. I turned the notice on my door to say ‘Closed’ and waited for him. I suffered a mild shock as, for once, he had the next best thing to a smile on his face.

  He wouldn’t say a dicky bird until he had a Heineken in his hand, though I could tell he was dying to. Bing jumped up on his lap, and began sniffing his sweater, trying to find traces of all the fish Gus had caught over the last forty years. I began to lose patience.

  ‘Come on, Gus, or I’ll tell Bing “go kill”.’ He chuckled and put down his can.

  ‘Well, old dear, I’ve suddenly become quite a convert to the ways of the church, I have …’

  ‘Come on. Don’t stretch it out,’ I snapped irritably.

  ‘I’m not,’ he replied quietly. ‘I’ve been having a long chat to the Vicar of St Sebastian’s.’

  I saw at last what he was getting at. ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘And he’s given in, that’s all.’

  ‘You mean to our lot or Treasure’s lot?’

  ‘Don’t be thicker than you are. To us, of course.’

  I got up excitedly, and frightened Bing off his lap. ‘You mean, he’s agreed to the dig?’

  ‘Yes. As long as we clear up nicely afterwards. “So as not to leave scars on God’s land” as he put it, the pompous twit.’

  I couldn’t quite absorb the news. It had now all happened so suddenly, after long tedious months of controversy.

  ‘How did you do it, Gus? Tell me?’

  I sat down again and took a long gulp of beer.

  ‘Just rang him up. I knew you’d got nowhere with Treasure, so I thought it was time I did something for a change.’

  ‘You reminded him of Redfern’s mother’s wishes, and all that?’

  ‘Yes,’ was all he said. But I knew there was more.

  ‘Come on, Gus. I’m your friend. It wasn’t just that, was it?’

  He really did smile this time. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and went and got him another beer. ‘There you are. Now tell me.’

  ‘Well, I had a little something on him. Not enough to work if the pilot’s mum hadn’t written as well. But when you put the two together …’

  ‘What was it?’

  He relaxed back in his chair.

  ‘You know old Mrs Blunt next door? Her we picked up the old chairs for yesterday? Well, when I delivered them she brought out a bottle of sherry, and we got to drinking and talking and all that. I told her about the old Spitfire and how we wanted to dig it up and put it in a museum. Her boy was lost in a Lancaster a month before war ended so she knew what I meant. And she asked what the trouble was. And I said, mainly the Vicar and old Treasure. And she said she didn’t know about Treasure, but she certainly knew about the Vicar. And I said what did she mean? And she said about three years ago there was a bit of trouble after choir practice one night. It was her grandson. He was in the choir. About twelve he was, she said. And the Vicar is supposed to have made advances, you know, or so her grandson said, and she claimed he was never given to telling lies — ever. Never got out — the story, I mean. The boy’s dad went to see the Vicar, and he denied it, saying he was a happily married man and all that, so nobody knew who to believe, and the whole thing was dropped. But Mrs Blunt said she was sure. Can tell by a man’s eyes, she said.’

  I suddenly realized what Treasure might have had on the cleric all this time. I kept quiet and let Gus finish.

  ‘So I made up my mind to take a little gamble. I said if he didn’t agree to old Mrs Redfern’s wishes, which was right and proper, I would have to raise a little matter of choirboys and things that weren’t quite right and proper.’

  ‘And he agreed right away?’

  ‘Well, he said my vicious threat had nothing to do with his decision. He had already made up his mind the dig should go ahead, seeing as how the pilot’s mum wanted it that way. And he said he was telling the local papers today. So we won, my old love, we won.’

  I went over and clasped him by the hand. ‘Congratulations. I’ll ring the Historical Aviation boys this afternoon. They can have a digger here by the weekend.’

  And in my excitement over the aircraft, I forgot all about that £22,000 thundercloud still hanging over my head.

  *

  After Gus had gone, and I had cleared away our lunch things, the rest of the afternoon was a hell of an anti-climax. Okay, we had won on the Spitfire and that was marvellous, but in a way it had shut one of my doors into Treasure, for I now had no excuse to go and talk to him, which the controversy over the excavation had given me. He was still on my list of suspects for the toys but I certainly couldn’t go straight in and ask if I could have my toys back, please. So my secondary sources of information would have to suffice, and I could see I would have to manufacture an excuse for seeing Arabella sooner than I thought.

  So that still left Vivian Stone, and now Rankin again and all the rest of them, and they bugged me so much, that after seeing the TV news, which wasn’t exactly a pick-me-up (another plane hijack, another strike in the public sector, another landslip in Peru, another hike in the oil price, and another mediocre weather forecast), I bundled myself and Bing into the Beetle and made for Bournemouth. And just to make me feel even better, the heavens opened before I had even reached the ferry; in marked contrast to the morning. But that’s Britain for you.

  Now Bournemouth in the wet doesn’t look quite right somehow. Not that it’s Los Angeles or anything, but rain, as my old English tutor used to say, ‘doesn’t sit well’ on the south coast spa. It was certainly coming down today, sheets of it, wall-to-wall, and swishing down the Chines to the sea.

  Stone’s white and gold, flat roofed, thirties mansion looked a trifle absurd against the dark backcloth of thunderclouds, and I had to park the car in the road, as the electric eye controlling the drive gates did not seem to respond. I cursed my luck, told Bing to bark if anyone tried to steal the car, and throwing my tartan travel rug over my head, as I had neglected to bring a raincoat, ventured out into the elements.

  I opened the little side gate and went up the drive. But long before I reached the Spanish-style, over-decorated front door with the great gold knocker, my travel rug had become a real embarrassment. First of all, it was so full of water, it now weighed more than I did, and secondly, I could tell from my hands that the colours (which were many and varied) had started to run. However, the male animal being what he is, I stuck with it and knocked the knocker.

  Five minutes later, I had not only knocked the knocker senseless, but had instigated many a fine medley of tunes from Fiddler on the Roof. Neither the bangs nor the chimes produced a response. I stealthily moved across a flowerbed full of early geraniums, and looked in the nearest window. It was quite a shock. Vivian Stone had either completely changed his ideas on furnishings, or he had gone. The room was as the builder sold it. Empty. Completely empty. Not a curtain, not a rug, not a chair, not a picture.

  I stepped back on a geranium, and looked up at all the other windows I could see; not a curtain in sight, no lights, nothing. I quickly ran around the outside of the house, peering in every window on the ground floor. A big fat zero. Mr Stone had left Branksome Chine behind him. And goodness knows where he had gone, and, what’s more important, what he had taken with him. Like Monsieur Vincent’s toys,
for instance. And maybe my future.

  Round the back of the house, the surface of the pool skipped and jumped with the huge raindrops, and it was hard to imagine the scene of only a few days before. I wondered if Mrs Stone had taken off with him, complete with her Trollope. I made my soggy way over to the garages, but they were locked as I had expected. I tried to look in the window at the side, but it was too high. I gathered together a heap of large stones from the nearby rockery, and stood on those and peered in. It was then I felt the firm hand on my shoulder. I jumped.

  ‘Just hold it there, sir or madam. Step down slowly and don’t try anything.’

  I did and I didn’t. My heart was going five hundred to the dozen as I slowly lifted the sodden rug aside to see who my captor was. To my relief, it was a policeman.

  ‘Look officer, I wasn’t doing anything. I just called on Mr Stone, and was amazed to find he’d gone, that’s all.’

  He quickly frisked me, to see if I was bristling with firearms.

  ‘That may be, sir. But I think you had better come down to the station with me, just in case.’

  He began leading me back up the drive towards a flashing blue lamp I could now see parked ahead of my Beetle.

  ‘Look,’ I protested, ‘that’s my car behind yours. It’s got my cat in it. Would I bring my cat along with me if I was a burglar?’

  He looked at me through the sheets of rain and smiled. ‘I suppose you might, sir, if you were a cat burglar.’

  He sniggered, and I should have seen it coming. None of my protests made any difference. I sat beside him in the nice white Ford with the flashing light all the way to the station. But he did have the decency to radio for one of his colleagues to come and pick up the Beetle. Poor old Bing. He would begin to feel he was mixing with the wrong kind of company, and he would probably be right.