Murder at Moose Jaw (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

  ‘But you were happy to work with him? You’ve been on the board of Mammon for aeons. How did you square that with your dislike?’

  ‘I’ve never seen any reason to mix business with pleasure,’ said Bentley. ‘Farquhar was a considerable businessman. His ethics may have been questionable but he made money. That’s what business is about, so I was content to go along with him on that score.’

  ‘Until more recently?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Bentley leaned forward as if he had not heard properly, ‘How do you mean “more recently”?’

  ‘I understood,’ Bognor paused to remove a crumpet crumb from between two front teeth, ‘I understood that Farquhar was threatening to take Mammon out of the UK.’

  Bentley thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that’s about the size of it.’

  ‘Not something you were keen on?’

  ‘Naturally not.’

  ‘And yet,’ Bognor looked thoughtful, ‘you don’t mix business and pleasure.’

  Again Bentley seemed not to follow the drift of what Bognor was saying. Bognor explained. ‘Taking Mammon out of Britain,’ he said, ‘made commercial sense. Your objections were entirely sentimental. Wouldn’t you say?’

  Bentley removed his monocle and blew on it. ‘There are times, Mr Bognor, when a man’s principles must override other considerations.’

  In the grate a log spat, sending an incandescent crumb on to the hearthrug. Bentley hurried to pick it up between forefinger and thumb, and threw it back in the fire, wincing slightly as he did. Bognor watched and considered the implications of this admission. He thought of Dr. Johnson and patriotism.

  ‘Another crumpet, Mr Bognor?’ asked Bentley when he had eliminated the risk of fire. Bognor said he wouldn’t mind if he did.

  It was an unsatisfactory encounter. Part of Bentley’s perceived code of gentlemanly behaviour was absolute discretion. It was not so much that he could not tell a lie but that he did not wish to be caught out in one. He preferred to imply everything while saying nothing. He was a master of the gracefully delivered slur, the smiling innuendo. ‘All cut and no thrust,’ Bognor remarked to himself as he trudged gloomily southward through the blizzard, his eiderdown overcoat insulating him from the weather as effectively as the walls of Bentley’s Rosedale mansion. He had had nothing but waffle, protestations of loyalty to fellow directors, to the firm, to the old country, to everything in fact but the memory of the dead man. Bognor would be returning to Harrison Bentley at a later date. Of that he was certain. Not just because he had conceived a profound distrust for the man but also because of one intriguing discovery made just before his departure.

  At about the point that their interview had ground jerkily to its conclusion Bognor conceived an urgent desire to pee. He wondered if it was possible to get back to his hotel room without relieving himself first and judged that it would be more prudent to use Harrison Bentley’s loo instead. Besides it was Bognor’s experience that you could learn a lot about people’s character from their loos and bathrooms. Those intimate little rooms with their old school photographs, their framed cartoons, their soaps and unguents and mirrors and potted plants and select reading matter had often yielded clues to Bognor that he had not found in more public rooms where display was contrived, whose very function was to impress. Bentley told him that the downstairs cloakroom had fallen prey to some mechanical dysfunction caused by cold, so Bognor had been sent upstairs to the master bathroom, a luxurious affair with sporting prints and copies of Country Life. There was also a bottle of Balenciaga bath oil marked ‘Mis en bouteille pour Sir R. Farquhar—bottled exclusively for Sir R. Farquhar.’

  It was half full. Bognor frowned hard when he saw it. The report said quite clearly that the bath oil was—as the labelling suggested—bottled exclusively for Farquhar and certainly not for any Tom, Dick or Harrison Bentley. The report also indicated beyond all possible doubt that the bottle of bath oil found in the ‘Spirit of Saskatoon’s’ bathroom was the instrument of death.

  It was this discovery and this alone which raised Bognor’s spirits as he shuffled through the snow. In itself, of course, it proved nothing. He had not questioned Bentley about it because he already felt defeated by his evasions and simpering. He felt sure that Bentley would have produced an answer and that he would not have believed it. Consequently he preferred to leave the question unanswered and therefore alive.

  ‘Balenciaga bath oil,’ he murmured, ‘exclusive to Farquhar, and yet sitting for all to see in Harrison Bentley’s bathroom.’ It made very little sense. The one thing a pseudo-English gent with a monocle would not do was bathe in Balenciaga. Maybe Muriel Bentley used it. He sighed and slipped on a patch of ice. That was not the point. The point was that the murder weapon or one just like it was brazenly on display in Harrison Bentley’s bathroom. Circumstantial perhaps but just as incriminating as coming across a revolver or a piece of bloodstained lead piping. He sighed and brushed ice from his eyebrows. He felt like a Baked Alaska in reverse—a warm, crumpety interior and a frozen façade. The thought of Baked Alaska cheered him up so that by the time he finally found a subway station he was actually humming a Verdi chorus and feeling on the borders of optimism.

  ‘So clean,’ he murmured, admiring the pristine state of the station, ‘so punctual. But where’s the charm in that?’

  3

  BOGNOR ARRIVED EARLY AT the Royal Alex but very nearly went away again. The current attraction was The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. Bognor had seen it twice in London, on both occasions with aged aunts now deceased. This production appeared to be on a tour of North America and the cast included a number of not quite famous names of the British stage of yesteryear, most of whom he had supposed to be as dead as his aunts. The prospect was unappealing. He could remember nothing whatever about the play except that it had established records for longevity. It ran and ran and ran until it became a theatrical freak, like a TV personality ‘famous for being famous’. It was certainly not a good play. Bognor remembered a detective in a fawn mackintosh. Had there been a butler? Surely not.

  He remained, uncertain, outside the foyer for several minutes but eventually entered. It was too cold to stand around. He had no alternative source of entertainment, and his ticket was free. Free gifts were irresistible as far as Bognor was concerned. Besides, something might turn up. The girl had been pretty and, in so far as pretty girls could be, somewhat sinister. Perhaps he would see her again, though why she should choose such a bizarre rendezvous he could not imagine. Nothing venture, nothing gain, he thought reluctantly.

  It was warmer in the theatre but only marginally so. It was a Victorian building and draughty. Gingerly he took off his eider coat and slipped it under the seat, then sat apprehensively not knowing what to expect except two or more hours of bored actors in a boring play. He sighed. He wished he were at home in the London flat with Monica. They could be drinking whisky toddies, anticipating a pile of lasagne. He did not want to be here. It was absurd. He sneezed. Next thing he would be catching cold. Or flu.

  Gradually the auditorium filled. The rest of the audience appeared to view the prospect of two hours of Christie with more enthusiasm than he did. Conversation buzzed. The air was thick with Chanel. Women were in furs and jewels, their men soaked in aftershave and, mostly, corseted into tight waistcoats. Many of those present looked the sort of folk one would expect to find drinking sherry at Harrison Bentley’s place before Sunday lunch, after matins at the Anglican cathedral. This was Old Toronto at leisure—Orange Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Bognor’s row was full by five minutes to curtain-up, except for the seat on his right. This vacancy excited Bognor. The empty seat suggested what he had hoped. In a moment a person would come and sit in it. A person on her—or, less acceptably, his—own. That person would, unless he were very much mistaken, be there for the express purpose of meeting him. Or so he hoped. If they were there for the express purpose of sitting through The Mousetrap, he would be a deeply unhappy man. H
e settled back into the red velvet and tried to visualize the petite Quebecoise who had accosted him that morning.

  The play, scheduled to begin at eight, was late starting. But at three minutes past when the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose no one had come to occupy the seat on Bognor’s right. This upset him. On stage a drawing room, furnished and decorated in a style of which Harrison Bentley would unquestionably have approved, was greeted with a round of genteel but enthusiastic applause. The entrance of the first actors provoked more clapping and even some isolated shouts. Bognor winced and closed his eyes. It was going to be one of those nights. He was sleepy. He had not come three and a half thousand miles to watch a substandard rendering of a bloody awful Agatha Christie whodunnit. He sighed and stretched and switched his mind over to neutral. At least he could have a kip.

  It could not have been more than ten minutes. On stage they were still in the drawing room, the women in twin sets and pearls, the men in grey flannel bags. But it was not any coup de théâtre by Miss Christie which jerked him back to consciousness, it was a late arrival. All around him people were muttering irritably as the newcomer passed along the row towards Bognor, forcing members of the audience to lurch, cumbersome and complaining, to their feet. He was not managing with dexterity. ‘I’m sorry,’ Bognor heard. ‘Most awfully sorry. I’m sorry.’ These apologies were issued in a loud stage whisper which provoked a chorus of ‘Shushes’ from the auditorium. At length the man, for it was, to Bognor’s disappointment, a male, stumbled over Bognor himself and fell, breathing heavily, into the vacant seat on his right. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Bognor, in the same stage whisper. ‘Traffic is just terrible. I was twenty minutes getting from Bloor to Adelaide.’ Bognor said nothing. He was aware of heavy-duty aftershave and a trace of Quebec or Acadian accent. The man pushed his folded coat under the seat. On stage a character called Giles said, ‘My god, I’m half frozen. Car was skidding about like anything.’ It appeared that Christieland was having cold weather too. Giles was afraid they might be snowed up tomorrow. Millie, mutton dressed as lamb in a skirt high above ugly thickset knees, clutched at the radiator and said they’d have to keep the central heating well stoked. This was greeted with a spatter of nervous laughter. On his right his new neighbour turned to him and said in the same accented whisper, ‘I’m sorry, but could I borrow your programme? I didn’t get one.’ Bognor handed it over and wondered if he should try to stay awake. He decided he should remain awake and alert, not in order to appreciate the nuances of the play but just in case the whole elaborate charade of the theatre ticket should turn out to have some point to it. He assumed it had something to do with the man who sat in the formerly empty chair but he might have been wrong. There was an elderly couple on his left, she blue-rinsed, he bald as an egg. He saw no hope there. It was unlikely to be anything to do with the row in front. But what of the row behind? Bognor froze. He hadn’t considered the row behind. Now he did so. He did not like the idea that an enemy might be sitting immediately behind him, even though the idea seemed somewhat far-fetched. He liked it even less when, on stage, one the characters exclaimed, ‘A murder? Oh, I like murder.’ This struck Bognor as being at one and the same time silly and ominous.

  ‘Thank you.’ The newcomer, whom he had quite forgotten in the excitement of his feverish apprehensions, was returning his programme. Bognor nodded warily and turned his attentions to the stage where events were assuming an ever more sinister turn. The inhabitants of a guesthouse were in the process of being marooned by snow, cut off from civilization and milkman. He knew how they felt.

  As the curtain went down on the first scene, Bognor’s neighbour got up again and left, whispering a further string of apologies but no explanation. Bognor wondered whether to follow him but decided against it. With his luck he would find himself following the stranger into the gentlemen’s lavatory, an exercise which could only end in embarrassment. Misunderstanding. Complaint. Criminal charges. Deportation. It was not to be thought of. The man would, doubtless, return and Bognor eased back as the curtain went up on the same Olde Englishe room from whose windows cottonwool snow could be seen steeply banked. Two of the familiar-faced actors began to discuss the corned beef hash they had eaten for lunch. Bognor sighed audibly and shut his eyes.

  He was a habitual dreamer, and he dreamed now, in colour, about a blizzard through which he stumbled for days on end, accompanied only by a team of husky dogs. It was a very dull dream and he was as bored by it as was possible for one to be whilst dreaming. Therefore he was almost relieved to be jerked awake by the sound of screaming. He was on the point of leaping to his feet when he realized that the screaming was entirely synthetic and coming from the stage, where the curtain was descending on the banshee figure of one of the actresses who had just stumbled on a freshly killed corpse. Bognor sighed and glanced to his right. The seat was still empty. As the house lights came on he looked down at the programme which lay on his lap folded back at the cast list. There was some handwriting on it, neat ballpoint blue, a simple message. ‘Mr Bognor, meet me in the parking lot. Green Pinto. Will flash lights twice.’

  Aha. Bognor experienced a sudden quickening of the pulse. He was to be spared the longueurs of act two of The Mousetrap.

  4

  THE PARKING LOT WAS immediately opposite the theatre, a flat expanse of concrete prairie stretching out towards the railway line and the lake beyond. Precious little hope of finding a green Pinto flashing its lights, thought Bognor, surveying the massed ranks of chrome and aluminium. He glanced back at the theatre and had a pang of regret. The play might have been bad but it was British. Now, standing out in this alien frost, he felt definitely homesick. He wanted Monica and a hot toddy and the Evening Standard. At this moment he would like nothing better than to be sitting on the floor of the flat wrestling with the Evening Standard word game. Or even Monica. He sighed just as a pair of headlights flickered at him. They came from a car idling over at the exit a few yards away. Impossible to see whether it was a Pinto, let alone green. The snow and the darkness were blinding. The lights flashed again and Bognor breathed in, did a metaphorical girding of the loins and sped across the road towards his rendezvous.

  As he arrived, panting, the door was flung open. He hesitated, then got in rather heavily as a familiar stage whisper urged him to hurry. His bottom had hardly touched the leatherette before the car lurched out into a main road, turned left and spun away, slithering and complaining in much the same way that Bognor himself had crossed the road a few moments earlier. As they drew up at a red light, the driver glanced in the driving mirror and seemed to relax marginally. He turned to Bognor and, for the first time, spoke in his normal voice.

  ‘I apologize,’ he said, ‘for dragging you away from the play. I could easily find you a ticket for another night if you wish.’ His accents were unmistakably French Canadian. Bognor had not thought he liked the Quebecois accent but for the second time on his visit to Canada he was forced to concede that it could sound quite attractive.

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said, ‘I really can’t be bothered with it. I can’t stand all that fiddly plotting. And the acting is excruciating.’

  ‘It was the policeman.’ The French Canadian raced the protesting car away from the lights, crashing the gears as he did. ‘Sergeant Trotter.’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember now. Only he wasn’t really a policeman.’ Bognor had a dim recollection of a dramatic denouement witnessed over a box of Black Magic chocolates twenty years before. Had he been with a girlfriend? Monica even? No, he could not have met Monica then. Or could he? He frowned. ‘I’m afraid I slept through most of the first act.’

  ‘I noticed.’ The driver smiled and Bognor had the impression of deep lines, a strong, attractive face somewhere in its forties, perhaps slightly younger, very dark. ‘Sergeant Trotter,’ he continued, ‘was some sort of lunatic. The real detective was Major Metcalf. Peculiar. I understood that the British police force sent superintendents to investigate murders.’


  ‘Do they?’ said Bognor absent-mindedly. ‘I suppose they do. Perhaps they didn’t have superintendents in Agatha Christie’s day. I’m afraid I’m not very observant about rank. I prefer the North American approach, Christian names all round and none of this pretentious nonsense about sergeants and majors and superintendents. By the way, I’m terribly sorry, I don’t think I quite caught your name, I’m Bognor.’

  This remark was ignored. ‘I understand,’ he said, still driving too fast, still glancing twitchily in the mirror, ‘you work from intuition rather than deduction, Mr Bognor. I can understand that you would not find Miss Christie’s plots particularly appealing.’

  ‘They’re all right in their way,’ said Bognor. ‘Only my experience is that real life isn’t quite so neat and tidy. In fact, real life is an absolute shambles if you want my opinion. This particular case I’m working on at the moment being no exception.’

  They swung north on a multi-lane expressway. Bognor noticed a sign to the airport. He began to feel uneasy.

  ‘I’m glad you think that,’ said his new acquaintance. ‘The Mounties seem to think they have it solved already.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Bognor, ‘are we talking about the same thing? Do you know what I’m investigating? It’s supposed to be something in the order of a secret.’

  ‘Ha!’ It was not really a laugh, more of a snort. ‘It would be difficult to keep it a secret from me,’ he said, ‘and not very desirable. You see, the Mounties are sure that it was I who did it. That is what I wanted to talk to you about. I felt sure that you would have a more open mind.’

  ‘Not just open but positively blank,’ said Bognor. ‘You still haven’t told me who you are or what it is that the Mounties think you did.’

  ‘Did anyone follow you when you left the theater?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t think so either.’