Let Sleeping Dogs Die (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 13

  ‘That’s what Raffles is supposed to do?’

  Parkinson thumped the desk. ‘Where have you been, man? Don’t you watch the television?’

  ‘Not much, no.’

  Parkinson buried his face in his hands. When he removed it, he said simply, ‘Please just establish the identity of this dog in Richmond. Then report back. But,’ and here he raised his voice, ‘do absolutely nothing else. Do not get involved. Do not make a fool of yourself. And report back on your return.’

  Bognor smiled wanly and left.

  Before catching the Underground he telephoned Heathrow airport’s cargo centre and eventually found the official who’d dealt with Handyside’s transaction the day before. After much prevarication from him and a judicious mixture of threatening and wheedling from Bognor, results appeared. Handyside had, it seemed, delivered a dog for despatch to Copenhagen. At this Bognor’s heart started to pump extravagantly. Then the man said that the dog in question had been a bulldog, and Bognor became almost hysterical.

  ‘Could it possibly have been …’

  ‘I can guess that you’re going to say, sir, and there’s no question of it. We’ve been on the alert naturally ever since Raffles was abducted, and even someone like Mr Handyside can’t be above suspicion, we know that …’ Bognor could picture the bureaucrat’s face, the ponderous, pompous expression as these flat clichés came rolling out.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ he asked. ‘Because it wasn’t chewing gum, I suppose.’

  Offence had been taken. ‘Raffles is a white dog with some highly distinctive black markings, sir. This dog was jet black with no trace of white on its coat whatever.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘I’m a very busy man, sir, and yes I am certain and now I have work to attend to if you’ll forgive me.’

  Bognor didn’t forgive him. So near and yet so far. There must be something in it. As he understood it Handyside had put a bulldog on the flight to Copenhagen and, within hours, Raffles was on offer in Denmark. In London the dog had been jet black and yet the dog which was on sale was apparently white with black markings. And the dog in Richmond was also white with black markings. Highly distinctive black markings at that.

  He realized with a start that it was getting on for 10.30. If he was to make Richmond by eleven, using public transport, he would have to hurry. He ran out of the office and jogged breathlessly to the St James’ Park station where, luckily, the first District Line train was Richmond bound. After Earls Court the crowds who had forced him to travel that far in a standing position dispersed to some exhibition or other and he was able to continue seated. Richmond was the last stop on the line so that he had ample time to think, but think as he might he could see no easy solution. Someone, to coin a phrase, was being sold a pup, but he couldn’t yet see how or who.

  There was a taxi waiting by the town station and he took it, regardless of expense, because he was late. The driver grinned when he said, ‘Dogs’ Home.’

  ‘Some do up there, eh?’ he said, ‘I had a couple of boys from the Express earlier. Said they’ve got Raffles up there. Lucky he didn’t end up as pet food if you ask me.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  The driver laughed. ‘They only keep the strays a week, then they flog ’em off, make them into canned meat. Or melt them down for soap.’

  They were driving up Richmond Hill now, with its pretty, dolls’ house-like shop fronts and its Georgian terraces leading away to the left. On the right, a long way below, a clear blue Thames threaded lazily through the green of the valley. At the top of the hill, by the park gates, the driver turned sharp left and pulled up outside a redbrick compound which looked like a Victorian gaol. A khaki van, labelled BBC Television, was parked on the double yellow line by the main gate.

  The presence of television crews reassured him. He was in the right place. He marched in past a notice which said ‘There is no Welfare State for animals, please give generously’ and another in pseudo-childish handwriting, adorned with paw-marks, which appealed ‘Please help build a new home for us dumb friends’. Inside the front hall he started to ask for directions at the reception desk, but before he’d finished the woman behind the grille said, ‘Press conference first floor turn left third door on the right’ and continued knitting.

  The press conference, when he reached it, was attended by about thirty journalists. The reporters were standing around, faintly embarrassed at having to attend such a clearly silly-season event while the photographers crowded about the dog. This, wearing an expression of Churchillian hostility, was sitting on a giant Excelsior Chewing Gum carton and was flanked by two nubile ladies wearing platform heels, bikinis and sashes emblazoned with the one word ‘Excelsior’. It undoubtedly had markings of the requisite kind but its general manner was one of surly belligerence which Bognor found surprising in a dog so famous. He supposed it might have something to do with the photographers’ flashlights which kept exploding just in front of the animal’s face, but the celebrated Raffles was surely used to that by now. The only person he recognized was Handyside who had taken off his ear-ring and had reverted to the casually knotted neckerchief.

  ‘All’s well that ends well, Mr Bognor,’ he said, shaking hands and simpering. ‘The villains must have panicked when they realized what a hue and cry had been unleashed. Besides it would have been quite impossible to have disposed of dear Raffles short of … Well, we needn’t go into that, need we, old boy.’ He leant down and made as if to stroke the back of the dog’s neck, but before he could, the dog growled and snapped at him. Handyside withdrew the hand quickly and one or two of the journalists tittered.

  ‘He’s had a shock,’ said Handyside. ‘He’s not used to being kidnapped.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Bognor, ‘that if the thieves had been imaginative they could have got rid of him abroad?’

  Handyside showed no reaction. ‘Most unlikely,’ he said. ‘It’s so extraordinarily complicated unless you know the ropes. Besides these particular villains were interested in ransom money, not selling.’

  ‘Still,’ Bognor persisted, ‘if they’d kept their nerve they could have had both.’

  This time he thought Handyside seemed momentarily uneasy. ‘In theory,’ he said, ‘in theory yes, Mr Bognor. But in practice I think not. I think you should meet Brigadier Willoughby, the Home’s secretary.’

  He introduced the Brigadier a bluff brigadierly caricature who at first glance seemed more suitable for the secretaryship of a golf club than an animals’ home.

  ‘Board of Trade, eh?’ he repeated after Handyside had gone off to explain that Raffles would not chew gum for the television cameras as he was still technically in a state of shock. ‘Knew a chap in the Board of Trade once. Fellow called Parkinson.’

  ‘He’s my boss,’ said Bognor.

  ‘Good God, I wouldn’t have thought he was old enough to be anybody’s boss. That dates me. So you’re in that branch of the Board of Trade,’ he continued, removing the pipe from his mouth and jabbing it in Bognor’s direction.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’re here officially?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Brigadier sucked on his pipe. ‘You got a moment,’ he asked, ‘when this lot’s over? At least, I tell you what, this chap Handyside’s laid on some sparkling white plonk or other which I don’t suppose you’ll want anything to do with. I’ve got a bottle of Gordon’s and some bitters in my den, so we can slip out for a moment and have a pink gin and a chinwag while these blokes are laying into their vino. How about that? You don’t want to listen to Handyside waffling on, do you?’

  Bognor said that the last thing in the world he wanted to listen to was Handyside’s speech, so the minute the two bathing belles with the sashes started to move round with trays of sparkling white wine and packets of chewing gum, Bognor and the Brigadier beat a discreet retreat.

  ‘Well,’ said the Brigadier when he’d mixed two very stiff gins. ‘Glad you showed up. This
is much more your sort of pigeon than the police’s. May not be anybody’s pigeon but I’d like to tell someone about it. Burden shared is a burden … er … well never mind. Cheers.’

  He consumed the first half of his glass. ‘Know anything about dogs?’ he asked.

  For what seemed like the millionth time in the past week Bognor confessed his ignorance.

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Willoughby, ‘until this job came up. But I’ve had to do my homework and I reckon I know as much as most now. Well, of course, I recognized this dog as Raffles the minute he came in. He was found up in Fulham and the people brought him straight down here. We’re better known than the police when it comes to this sort of thing. Well, the second we got him I rang Handyside. I’d seen his name in the papers so I knew who to get in touch with. That was fine. No problem. He sounded very relieved and said he’d like to fix up a little party so I said that’d be O.K. and that’s what’s going on down the corridor. So, you might think all’s well that ends well, eh?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s where you’d be wrong. Have another gin?’ He poured two more. ‘Now after I’d finished talking to Handyside I went down to have a look at this Raffles creature. Not every day you get a dog worth thousands in here. Most of the wretched beasts have got distemper or virus hepatitis or leptospira canicola. So I went down to the cells and I had a good look at him, and the more I looked the less I liked what I saw. Know why?’

  Bognor gave an impression of deep thought and then shook his head.

  ‘Nor did I at first,’ said Brigadier Willoughby, clearing his throat noisily, ‘but I definitely sensed that it wasn’t the dog I’d seen on the gogglebox. It was a bulldog all right, and the markings were the same, but it wasn’t holding itself well. Drooping. And the breathing was poor. At first I put this down to the ill effects of its kidnap, then I had another dekko at the coat. I had an impression that those famous markings were just a little too good to be true. Know what I mean?’

  Bognor nodded cautiously. ‘I think I see what you’re driving at.’

  The Brigadier smiled. ‘I can see you’re one of Parkinson’s boys. Well, to cut a long story short, that dog had been faked.’

  ‘Faked?’

  ‘Faked. Tampered with. They used to do it a lot in the last century. Clip the tails to make the dog do better in competition, cut a bloodhound’s eyes to make them droop more.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Bloodhound’s eyes are supposed to droop. Don’t ask me why, ask the Kennel Club. The specification for the breed says that the eyes shall droop and those Victorians used to make them droop artificially if they couldn’t do it naturally. But I’m digressing. Another common sort of faking was to whiten the animal’s coat with magnesium. And it’s that or something very like it that’s been done to that dog out there. If we were to go back to Handyside’s party now and scrape away at the so-called Raffles’ coat I’d wager that within a few minutes you’d have revealed a totally black bulldog. Scarcely a white hair on him.’

  ‘I see.’ Bognor’s mind was working overtime. ‘I didn’t notice it. The coat looked perfectly natural to me,’ he said truthfully.

  ‘Done by an expert,’ said the Brigadier. ‘No question about that. Take a naturally suspicious chap like me to spot it. And a very knowledgeable fellow too. Those press johnnies back there would never twig. Too gullible and too pig ignorant.’

  ‘But someone like Handyside,’ said Bognor, ‘he’d notice, surely?’

  ‘’Course he would. He knew the dog too, so he’d be bound to spot an impostor. Anyway I realized what had happened late last night and I can tell you I was on the verge of telephoning Handyside to put him off and say someone was playing an elaborate practical joke, but …’ Brigadier Willoughby fumbled with his matches and Bognor waited while he relit the pipe. ‘Something made me leave it. Can’t work out what it was. Some sort of hunch, I suppose. So I kept quiet and let him come round to work it out for himself.’

  ‘And he came and didn’t notice,’ said Bognor, falsely naive.

  ‘That’s one possibility I won’t accept. He’d decided that dog was Raffles before he’d even seen it. Hardly looked at it. Just walked in and said, “So there you are, Raffy, old man” and gave him a piece of cheese.’

  ‘Cheese?’

  ‘Yes. All dogs like cheese. Now. You’re the detective wallah, what do you make of that?’

  ‘If what you suggest is correct,’ said Bognor, choosing his words, ‘then there are only two possibilities. One is that Raffles has always, as it were, worn make-up so that he’d appear unusual and distinctive. And the second is that the dog giving the press conference isn’t Raffles at all, but someone else disguised as Raffles, and that Handyside knows.’

  Bognor recalled the pure black bulldog on the aeroplane to Copenhagen.

  ‘No reason is there,’ he asked, ‘why it shouldn’t be done in reverse? White dyed black, I mean.’

  ‘Easier, I would imagine,’ said the Brigadier.

  ‘And it could be washed off again fairly fast?’

  ‘Depends what sort of dye or paint you used. You on to something?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Bognor. ‘Did you say anything to Handyside about this faking?’

  ‘I’d left it too late,’ said the Brigadier. ‘If I’d said the dog was a fraud after he’d “recognized” it, then I’d have been calling him a crook or an imbecile. And I wasn’t going to do that. Besides, he’d have blustered his way out of it. If he wants to carry on this sort of charade that’s his business. It’s not an offence. It’s a bit like going to the lost property office when you’ve had your umbrella pinched. You collect the first umbrella you see. Doesn’t matter whether it’s yours or not. All part of the game.’

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why the dog was faked,’ said Bognor. ‘It sounds like an elaborate job. It would have taken a long time and a lot of skill.’

  ‘Had to put on some sort of show for the press and the public,’ said the Brigadier, swirling the remains of his gin about in the glass. ‘I mean, if photographs of a black bulldog with no markings had appeared in the papers, not even you would have thought it was Raffles.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Bognor. ‘But what it comes down to is that Handyside’s dog—or the syndicate’s dog—was stolen and still is stolen. And yet Handyside has accepted some second-best animal, pretending that it’s the genuine article. Why?’

  ‘That’s your problem, old boy,’ said the Brigadier. ‘All it means is that the fuss is over. The case is closed. Dog goes missing. Ransom note is sent. Dog turns up. As far as the public and the press and for that matter the police are concerned, the kidnappers got cold feet and set the animal loose. There’s no stolen property to be recovered and everybody can relax.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Bognor. ‘So that if Handyside had arranged the kidnapping himself so that he could collect the insurance, and if he then had second thoughts because he felt the police or the insurance company were getting suspicious, then this would be an obvious solution.’

  ‘Much simpler,’ said the Brigadier, ‘to take the real dog back.’

  ‘But suppose the real dog wasn’t available. Suppose it had already been disposed of.’

  The Brigadier looked at him sharply. ‘Disposed of?’ he echoed. But before he could enquire further there was a knock at the door and a minion appeared to say that the press wanted to ask questions about how the dog came to be in the Home.

  ‘Keep all this to yourself,’ he said, ‘or at least check with me before using it. It could be highly embarrassing for everyone, not least the Home itself.’ Bognor nodded.

  The journalists’ questions were routine, bored, almost perfunctory, and soon over. Afterwards Handyside walked across the room to Bognor.

  ‘Satisfied?’ he asked, eyes narrowed and mouth fixed in a smug smile.

  ‘Not particularly,’ said Bognor, ‘But I’m glad you’ve got your dog back. If it really is your dog.
I hear you were posting a dog to Copenhagen yesterday. A bulldog, too?’

  ‘What of it? I told you myself that I’d been to Heathrow. I picked the animal up from a client in Windsor. Everything was perfectly in order. You can check.’

  ‘I already have,’ said Bognor. He gazed at the bulldog which was now in the process of being led away by one of the girls in swimwear. ‘That dog,’ he said, musingly, ‘doesn’t look as perky as it does in the advertisements. And if I didn’t know better I’d say his coat looked a shade lack-lustre. A bit blurred at the edges.’

  Handyside didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mr Bognor,’ he said after a brief silence, ‘I don’t imagine we’ll be meeting again. Unless you propose taking up dogs as a hobby. I presume your professional enquiries are at an end.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ he replied, ‘they’re only just beginning.’

  Outside he decided that the Brigadier’s revelation made a taxi a justifiable expense. He flagged one down on the hill and was back at the Board of Trade in half an hour.

  ‘I really must go to Copenhagen. Now,’ he said to Parkinson as soon as he was inside his superior’s subterranean headquarters. ‘I’ve solved it. If I can get hold of the real Raffles then I’m home and dry. And I’m virtually certain that the real Raffles is alive and well in Denmark. That Percy Pocklington is supervising his sale, using a reputable Danish breeder as a front man. Handyside dyed the real Raffles black. Now he’s in Denmark he’s been undyed and in the meantime they’ve got hold of some ordinary bulldog and painted him up to look like Raffles and he’s the dog I saw at Richmond.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Parkinson, who had been on the point of leaving for lunch and was greatly surprised by his subordinate’s unheralded and exuberant arrival. ‘Would you please start at the beginning and continue in chronological form until you come to the end. Then perhaps I shall understand.’

  After ten minutes it was clear that Parkinson was as confused as Bognor had become. He picked up the phone and dialled his club. ‘Parkinson here,’ he said. ‘Please tell Sir Charles I’ve been unavoidably detained and that I’ll be with him as soon as I can.’ Bognor appreciated the one-upmanship. ‘Now,’ Parkinson returned to the matter in hand. ‘You want to go to Denmark to find the real Raffles?’