‘I wish I knew. Three drivers gone and no knowing when there might have been a fourth, except…’
‘Except?’
‘They’ve struck. Say it isn’t good enough. Say they are not prepared to take any more coaches out until this whole matter is cleared up and the murderer found.’
‘Well, I suppose their attitude isn’t really surprising, is it?’
‘From one point of view perhaps it is not. However, I have one shot left in my locker. I am meeting them tomorrow at eleven and I am going to suggest that I send them out in twos. It means cancelling certain of the tours, of course. I’m working on that at the moment, because I shall try to cancel the least profitable ones and, anyway, the whole thing needs a tremendous amount of reorganisation. There are still a number of coaches out on the road, I’m thankful to say, but unless I can do something to stop the rot, the drivers are going to be got at by these dissidents as soon as the coaches come back, and then the rest of the men will be persuaded to join in the strike.’
‘I take it they won’t need much persuading.’
‘Is Dame Beatrice upset by her dreadful experience?’
‘No. I telephoned my husband at headquarters and he is seeing to it that she is under complete protection until Carstairs and Knight are pulled in.’
‘Who is Carstairs?’
Laura looked surprised and said:
‘A mysterious sort of chap who owns a bungalow on the hillside above the Saighdearan hotel. Nobody seems to know much about him. Apparently he’s a bird of passage, sometimes there, but mostly not. It was in his bungalow that Vittorio was found murdered.’
‘What!’
‘I though you knew. Sorry if I’ve given you a shock. It’s in this morning’s paper. I though you must have seen it.’
‘Vittorio murdered? I can’t believe it. What on earth was he doing in Saighdearan?’
‘Visiting this man Carstairs, apparently. Or, of course,’ said Laura, as though she had just been struck by the thought, ‘I suppose Vittorio could have been staying with Carstairs. He seems to have been sleeping in Carstairs’ bedroom when he was stabbed.’
‘Stabbed? Like the other two?’
‘Well, yes,’ admitted Laura. ‘Like them in that only one blow, and that a shrewdly lethal one, seems to have been struck, but, of course, a different weapon may have been used.’
‘Did you and Dame Beatrice know about this – this third murder – when I came to lunch?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. We knew of it before we left Saighdearan.’
‘Yet neither of you mentioned it.’
‘The news hadn’t been made public, you see. But haven’t you looked at your newspaper this morning?’
‘I haven’t had time. I’ve been working out these double-driver schedules since before breakfast. I’ve done nothing but swallow a cup of coffee. I haven’t even looked at my correspondence. I suppose I’d better do that.’
‘And I’m hindering you,’ said Laura. ‘Anyway, we thought you’d be interested to hear our news.’
‘That somebody broke into the Stone House last night and attempted to murder Dame Beatrice?’
‘That’s what it looked like to us.’
‘God bless my soul!’
‘It reminds her, she said, of the editor of that newspaper in the Wild West when some indignant reader tried to shoot him. It meant that he really was getting somewhere with a series of articles he was writing to expose some local racket or other. Dame B feels she’s getting somewhere over tracking down these murderers. Well, I’d better let you get on.’
‘One thing,’ said Honfleur, ‘we’ve had lots of cancellations already, so there won’t be all that many letters to send out advising people that their tour has been called off. How I do hate paying back all those fares, though. We make them pay us well in advance, you see, so, of course, all that money has to be returned if it’s our fault they can’t go. As a matter of fact, we refund most of it for any cancellation so long as they give us fair notice that they are not able to make the trip. Goodwill and fair dealing are everything in this game.’
‘In every other game, too, one hopes.’
‘Yes, of course. Now, Mrs Gavin, what exactly is all this “sweep the dust behind the door” to which you referred?’
‘Ah, that, yes. Dame B wants to know whether you are in touch with Conradda Mendel.’
‘Conradda? How does she come into it?’
‘I don’t know. Probably she doesn’t.’
‘I haven’t seen or heard of her since that dinner she attended when I entertained Dame Beatrice and Vittorio. You remember?’
‘From hearsay, yes.’
‘Well, I understood that Conradda had sold her shops and emigrated. That is all I know. To go back to something you mentioned earlier: what did you mean about Carstairs and Knight being pulled in? Knight has disappeared, just like Noone and Daigh. Has Dame Beatrice any reason to think that he is still alive?’
‘I suppose so. We found no body at Saighdearan except Vittorio’s, so she thinks it’s possible that Knight is still alive. The police have combed and honeycombed the neighbourhood around Saighdearan, but have found nothing to suggest that he has been murdered – unless he’s Vittorio, of course,’ Laura added, struck by a sudden idea.
‘Quite impossible. I knew them both. They are not in the least alike,’ said Honfleur. ‘Whatever made you think of that?’
‘It was a wild suggestion,’ said Laura.
‘At any rate, Knight has disappeared,’ said Honfleur.
‘Yes, he certainly has,’ agreed Laura. ‘By the way, supposing he turned up again safe and well, would your drivers resume work? That’s one of the things I was sent to ask you.’
‘But neither you nor Dame Beatrice knew that my drivers were on strike until you came here today.’
Laura wagged her head.
‘We didn’t know,’ she admitted, ‘but Dame B gave me to understand that it was a fair assumption and, as usual, she turns out to have been right.’
‘Well, I hope she’s right about Knight, too, and that he’ll turn up,’ said Honfleur, beginning to fidget with a pencil.
‘You want to be busy, I know,’ said Laura, ‘so I won’t keep you any longer. It was a long shot about Conradda, but Dame B thought there was just the chance that you might be in touch with her.’
‘Sorry, no.’
Laura took her leave, remarking, as Honfleur opened his office door for her:
‘Best of luck in getting your men back to work.’
‘I may succeed, if Knight is alive and you can find him for me.’
Laura returned to the Stone House to find Dame Beatrice watched over by a private detective, a retired police-sergeant, whom Laura’s husband, in response to an urgent call from his wife, had sent along. Dame Beatrice gravely introduced him to Laura and he retired to the kitchen, leaving them together.
‘What news from the Slough of Despond?’ she enquired.
‘It’s that, all right,’ said Laura. ‘His drivers are going on strike. Could his job be in danger if they do? Apart from that, he knows nothing about Conradda, but Vittorio’s death has knocked him all of a heap. He seems to be a very worried man.’
‘The loss of three drivers and an impending strike would be quite enough to account for that.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘There is another factor, too, which may be causing him uneasiness. I have been in touch with one of his directors. It appears that a big merger is on the way. There are four coach-tour companies in the area, one of which is an off-shoot of a very much larger concern based on a Midlands network. It seems that agreement has been reached and that this mammoth concern will take over County Motors after the end of next season.’
‘So Honfleur could be made redundant, you think?’