‘There’s no mystery there, Inspector. It was the day of the week when she always visited Agnes Reader. Miriam Tarleton was as methodical as her husband. She had a day for this, a day for that and so on. Everyone in her circle knew her routine,’ said Everett. ‘On a Saturday morning, for instance, you’d always find her at St Andrew’s, arranging the flowers. She had a real knack for it.’
‘Did Mrs Reader visit her on a particular day?’
‘Oh, yes. You could probably set your watch by it. What did fall by the wayside a little were the occasions when the four of them played cards together. If they met at the colonel’s house, it would mean feeding the guests and savings had to be made. Bertram Reader was very understanding about that.’
‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘he seems a very understanding man.’
‘You have to be if you’re a banker. Bertram gets to see even more human misery in his office than I do. Money troubles can destroy whole families.’ He sat back and regarded Colbeck for a few moments. ‘If you’ve come to see me again, Inspector, I suspect that you’ve made very little progress.’
‘That’s not true, sir. We’ve already made some connections.’
‘Between whom, may I ask?’
‘Between Adam Tarleton and Michael Bruntcliffe, for example,’ said Colbeck. ‘It seems that they’ve been in touch quite recently.’ Everett was startled. ‘Young Mr Tarleton visited his friend in prison.’
‘Then why didn’t he tell his parents he was in the area?’
‘I doubt if he wanted them to know.’
‘What are those two up to, I wonder?’
‘That’s what I intend to find out. Even as we speak, Sergeant Leeming is conducting a search for Bruntcliffe. I’m hoping that he may have made another connection for us as well – the link between the colonel and Doncaster.’
‘Yes, I’d be interested to know that.’
‘The sergeant spent the morning in the town.’
‘Do you have any theories about what he might have found, Inspector?’
‘There’s a connection with the railways somehow,’ said Colbeck. ‘I felt that from the start. It’s worth bearing one thing in mind. When he committed suicide that day, the colonel was walking in the direction of Doncaster.’
Though the bank was closed, Bertram Reader was not off duty. He visited one client in Cowton that morning then had luncheon with another in Thirsk. It was mid afternoon when he finally returned home and was able to anticipate a period of rest. His wife gave him a sympathetic smile as he came into the drawing room.
‘You shouldn’t have to work on a Saturday,’ she said. ‘People ask too much of you. They should visit you during banking hours.’
‘Most of my clients do that Agnes,’ he told her, ‘but there are exceptions. When someone asks for a loan to extend their house or to increase the size of their herd – which is exactly what today’s clients wanted to do – I like to take a close look at their premises to make sure that everything is as it should be. I always ask to see their account books as well. My predecessor lost his job because he advanced loans without due care. One of the clients absconded with two thousand pounds that was never repaid.’
‘You’re back home now, that’s the important thing.’
‘What have you been doing?’
‘I’ve been thinking about this and that.’
‘Have you been brooding again?’ he asked, taking her by the shoulders. ‘You mustn’t keep blaming yourself.’
‘But if Miriam hadn’t been coming here…’
‘How many times must I say it? You did nothing wrong.’
‘Then why do I feel so guilty?’
‘It’s because you’re a dear, lovely, caring woman. I have my share of guilt, you know. If I hadn’t been with a client that day, you could have summoned me from my office to begin the search. I let you down and, indirectly, I let Miriam down.’
‘You weren’t to know, Bertram.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, taking his hands away. ‘I wasn’t to know any more than you were. We can’t be held responsible for what happened. It was a terrible tragedy but it can’t be laid at our door.’
‘You’re right.’
‘Then remember that I’m right,’ he said with mock sternness.
When they moved to the sofa and sat down, he noticed a piece of paper on the table beside her. Seeing his interest, she picked it up and passed it over to him. Reader studied the long list of names his wife had compiled.
‘I didn’t spend all my time brooding,’ she said.
‘Who are all these people?’
‘They’re murder suspects.’
He was offended. ‘Do you mind?’ he said with mild outrage. ‘My name is down here.’
‘And so is mine, Bertram.’
‘What do we have to do – confess?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she scolded. ‘I’ve tried to be useful. Every person on that list knew that Miriam would be coming to see me that day. They could have planned an ambush.’
‘You’ve got well over twenty names here,’ he said.
‘That’s the trouble. There were so many of us. Clifford Everett is one of them, though I ought to exclude him because he’s the least likely person to have committed a murder.’
He examined the list. ‘There’s something you’ve forgotten, Agnes. Anyone on this list could inadvertently have mentioned that Miriam came to Northallerton on a particular day. Sharp ears might have picked up the information. Or there’s something else we ought to consider,’ he went on. ‘The culprit may simply have watched Miriam for weeks beforehand and seen a pattern emerge. Inspector Colbeck said that calculation was involved.’
‘Are you telling me that my list is useless?’
‘No, no – simply that it’s not comprehensive.’
‘Oh dear!’ she said, forlornly. ‘I wasted my time.’
‘Don’t think that,’ he urged. ‘It was a very useful exercise and the villain may well be hidden somewhere in that list. I think that I should show it to the inspector.’
‘Very well, Bertram – please do that.’
He looked at her fondly. Though she was still in mourning attire, he was glad to see that she was not as pale and distraught as she had been. There were no visible signs of another bout of sustained weeping. Agnes was composed and dignified. He was reassured. As he let his gaze drift to the mantelpiece, he noticed a card that hadn’t been there before. He got up from the sofa.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It came this morning,’ she replied.
‘Who sent it?’
The question was answered when he saw the name at the bottom of the message inscribed inside the card. As he read it, his body tensed and his face hardened.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, noting the sudden change in his demeanour.
‘It is, my dear,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I have to find Inspector Colbeck as soon as I can.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One of the first things that Victor Leeming had learnt when he joined the Detective Department was that perseverance was a virtue. No matter how intractable a murder case might seem at first, it could always be solved, he was told, by a blend of patience and tenacity. A day spent largely on his feet had made the sergeant question the dictum. While he remained as tenacious as ever, his patience was wearing thin. The visit to Doncaster had brought what he considered to be a marginal success but the search for Michael Bruntcliffe was a story of sustained failure. His starting point had been the family of the released prisoner but they’d been able to give him scant help. While the mother still yearned for him to come home and mend his ways, the father had abandoned all hope of his doing so and wished never to see his son again.
What the parents were able to give Leeming, however, were the names and addresses of some friends of Bruntcliffe. The sergeant’s perambulation around Northallerton began in earnest. He went from house to house, only to be met by the same response. Bruntcliffe’s former friends all claimed that they were merely acquaintances and tried to distance themselves from someone who’d ended up in prison and brought disgrace to the family name. While nobody could say where Bruntcliffe was, the general feeling was that he wouldn’t be too far away. His first move on release, they all agreed, would be to search for amenable female company. Leeming managed to elicit the names of three young ladies who’d been close to Bruntcliffe in the past.