‘A doubtful commodity, but pray continue. What do you swear? – that you had nothing to do with the three murders which have taken place since you became embroiled with these nefarious characters?’
‘That’s it. You must believe me. After all, why would I kill my own drivers?’
‘With your own job in jeopardy, why should you care what happened to your drivers?’
‘You’re heartless and cruel!’
‘So was the person who killed Noone and Daigh, but please proceed, remembering, if you are wise, that I am in a position to check some part, if not the whole, of your story.’
‘It began,’ said Honfleur miserably, ‘when I first made Vittorio’s acquaintance. I believe he booked with us first as an ordinary passenger. I can’t remember which tour it was – one of those which does the Yorkshire dales, I believe – and a day or two after it returned he called here at my office and said that he wished to make a personal complaint. That is how I came to know him.
‘I told him he must make it in writing. I said that dealing with complaints was not part of my job. “You must write to the company,” I told him. “I am only responsible for checking on the bookings, arranging and sometimes changing the hotels, and looking after the welfare of the personnel.”
‘Well, he grinned in a nasty sort of way and picked up the word. “Ah, yes, the personnel,” he said. “I think, signore, you had better listen to what I have to tell you.” This sounded a bit sinister, so I gave him a chair, sent for my secretary as a witness and invited him to go ahead.
‘He started to tell me some garbled story about the coach-driver and one of the women passengers, but I soon cut him short. “Look here,” I said, “if the lady has been assaulted or in any way annoyed, it is up to her to complain. We may assume that she hasn’t complained. My directors would soon have taken action if she had, I do assure you. The coach-driver,” I said, “has a position of being in loco parentis to his passengers. He is not a chap out on the spree doing a gay Lothario act. If the lady hasn’t complained, either what you have told me is entirely false and a figment of your prurient imagination, or else,” I said, “she was a willing participant in whatever went on. In that case there is no more to be said. Had she been your wife,” I said, “You might well have cause for complaint. As it is, you have none. And what were you yourself doing, prowling about hotel corridors when you should have been in bed and asleep?”
‘He said he had had occasion to get up for the usual reason. I said, “What! With a bathroom to every bedroom? You seem to forget I know all our hotels and what the amenities are.” ’
‘That shook him, I’ll bet!’ said Laura. ‘Do you like “amenities” spelt with one m or two? – not that it will make any difference until I type out my shorthand.’
Dame Beatrice wagged her head at Laura in a reproving manner and said to Honfleur.
‘And that remark of yours terminated the interview, I take it?’
‘Well, it did, in one sense, but, in another sense, it didn’t. He said he had only been testing me. “That’s like your damn’ cheek!” I said. “Get out of here before I kick you out.”
‘ “No, honestly,” he said, “I’ve been sent here for that very purpose, to try you out. We just wanted to know what sort of fellow you were, and whether you were prepared to back up your office staff and go bail for your drivers and all that.”
‘ “What the hell do you mean by ‘we’?” I said; but I don’t mind telling you, Dame Beatrice, that I was worried. You see, quite by accident I had been given access to certain papers which were supposed at the time to be strictly confidential
‘About the projected merger between your own County Motors and a very much larger organisation?’
‘Yes, that’s it. How Vittorio had found out anything about it I have no idea. Somebody blabbed while under the influence, I imagine, and Vittorio, who was never anybody’s fool, picked it up as it came off the bat, I suppose.’
‘But such information (if, at that time, as you indicate, it had not been released) could only have been known at top level. Vittorio did not strike me as a man who would be on drinking terms with tycoons,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘I don’t suppose I was the only person who collected antiques, and that, as you know, was his line.’
‘I understand. Neither were you the only one of his clients who liked to pay a low price for stolen goods, I think.’
‘Strawberries and cream,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled. Honfleur looked puzzled and anxious. His flash of belligerence had gone.
‘So you believed at the time that, as Vittorio was in possession of this so-far exclusive information about the merger, he must be what he claimed to be – the accredited representative of the firm into which County Motors was to be absorbed. I suppose,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘That was his story, was it not?’
‘That’s the size of it,’ said Honfleur, relieved. ‘Well, of course, as soon as I found out about the merger I realised that my own job might be at stake, so when Vittorio invited me out for a drink, I thought that, as he was evidently top brass in the other coach company, it might be politic to play ball with him, so I went along.
‘We chatted over our drinks (which he paid for) and, of course, it came out that I had already known about the merger.’
‘And at that point he came out in his true colours, no doubt.’
‘You’re dead right he did. He told me that the merger was supposed to be top secret and that unless I played along with him he would blow the gaff to my board of directors. “And if I do that,” he said, “you won’t have to worry whether your job is going to be safe or not, will you? – because there won’t be any job for you to worry about. Leakage of confidential information is a serious matter, isn’t it?”
‘Well, I was still believing that he really was a key man in the other company, so I said I’d only come upon my information by accident and never intended to make use of it. I said I didn’t see how I could make use of it, even if I wanted to, which I most certainly did not. He laughed at me.
‘ “Yours isn’t the only coach company in this take-over business,” he said. “What’s to stop me leaking the information to some of the others, using your name, eh? That would put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?”
‘ “I should deny it and denounce you to your own company,” I said. He laughed again. “What company?” he asked. “I’m not employed by any coach firm. I have other interests and if you and I can get together there won’t be any need for you to bother whether you’ve got a job or not.” ’
‘And you took him at his word?’
‘Dame Beatrice, I had no option.’
‘But if you obtained the information about the merger merely by accident, could you not have told your board of directors and promised secrecy?’
‘Well, only in a way was it by accident. I overheard part of a telephone conversation. That was accidental enough. I’d been invited to attend a board meeting because the drivers were asking for more pay and, not wishing to be late, I had got there well before time. Well, knowing the place, I had slipped into a sort of little kitchen where the typists brewed up and which opened out of the boardroom. Nobody saw me, because the meeting, as usual, was held out of office hours, so I guessed nobody would be about until the meeting began and I thought I would sit in the kitchen and have a quiet smoke. I had no idea anybody was in the boardroom until the telephone rang and was answered. Well, that’s where I should have made myself known and not listened in, I suppose, but as soon as I realised what was being arranged I admit I listened and when the meeting was over I found myself thinking about what I’d heard.