“Oh!” Mary Anne was deeply shocked. “Are you saying that her brother was the thief?”
“I doubt very much if he was her brother, honey,” said Cyrus.
“Right again, sir,” said Rushton. “The second crime took place around two-thirty this afternoon-another jewelry shop, right here in Stratford. This time, both of them were involved. While the manageress of the shop was distracted, they switched expensive rings for cheap ones.”
“Two-thirty, did you say?” Mary Anne shook her head. “It wasn’t them, Sergeant. They were watching the matinée.”
“That’s what they wanted us to think,” said Cyrus. “And they were very convincing. I daresay they’ve done this before.”
“More than once, Professor,” said the detective. “The first time, their target was a jewelry shop in High Wycombe. The Shakespeare Express stops there. My belief is that Miss Walker left the train there and was picked up by her accomplice in a car. On the second occasion, a jewelry shop in Warwick was robbed. Weeks later, they followed the same routine in Leamington Spa and got away with thousands of pounds’ worth of diamond rings. Today, however,” he concluded, “was the only time they committed two major crimes on the same day.”
“Overreachers,” mused Cyrus.
“What’s that, sir?”
“People whose greed and ambition drives them too far. It’s a concept with which Shakespeare was very familiar, though it’s another playwright who gave it real definition. Does the name Philip Massinger mean anything to you, Sergeant?”
“Afraid not, Professor,” confessed the other. “I’ve lived in Stratford all my life but-I’m ashamed to say-I’ve never once been to a play here. Mind you,” he added by way of mitigation, “I was on duty the night the Memorial Theatre burned down in nineteen twenty-six. Who was this Philip Messenger?”
“Massinger-a Jacobean dramatist who wrote A New Way to Pay Old Debts. One of its main characters was a ruthless extortionist called Sir Giles Overreach. Like the two people we met earlier, he was brought down when trying to extend his grasping hand too far.”
“I still can’t accept that they were criminals,” said Mary Anne. “They were too nice, too thoroughly decent.”
“And we were too thoroughly American, honey.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why we were singled out at Paddington. We looked like a pair of innocent, defenceless, trusting American tourists. Think back. Who initiated the conversation?”
“She did, Cyrus.”
“Exactly. She befriended us to secure an alibi and she no doubt chose other unsuspecting Americans on the previous occasions.”
“In those cases,” said Rushton, “they were never called upon as witnesses because there was no arrest. This time, it was different.”
“Where did you catch them?”
“In their room at the Billesley Manor Hotel. They’d driven there to count their takings. It wasn’t just the jewelry shops that suffered, you see. The pair of them are accomplished pickpockets as well. They mingled with the crowd at the theatre in search of victims. People are off guard in that sort of situation. After the matinée, the manager had a number of complaints from people who’d been robbed.”
“They seem to have followed a pattern,” said Cyrus.
“That was their mistake, sir. It all started with the Shakespeare Express. They hit a different town each time but always pretended to go to a matinée here.”
“And they were arrested in a hotel?”
“In bed together, as it happens.”
Mary Anne was scandalized. “A brother and sister?”
“Incest is the one thing we can’t charge them with, Mrs. Hillier. In reality, they’re not related and their real names are nothing like the ones they gave to you.” He got to his feet. “Well, I’ll detain you no longer. Now that I know you won’t speak up on their behalf, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your help.”
“She picked the wrong dupes this time,” said Cyrus, crossing to open the door for him. “I began to suspect that something about Rosalind Walker was not quite right when she pumped us for information. She wanted to know exactly where we could be found. What clinched it for me was her little ambush at the theatre.”
“Ambush?”
“The lobby was packed to the rafters, Sergeant. She’d never have found me in that crowd. Knowing that I was bound to buy a program, Rosalind lurked by the counter where they were being sold. When she pounced on me, I knew something fishy was going on.”
“You’re something of a detective yourself, sir.”
“I take no credit. Shakespeare must do that.”
“Why?”
“When I watched the second half of the play this afternoon, something suddenly clicked at the back of my mind. It was a speech of Ulysses about Cressida.”
Rushton was mystified. “Who are they?”
“Characters in the play. Cressida has just greeted a succession of strangers with a familiarity that appalls Ulysses. I was reminded of the way that Rosalind-or whatever her name is-fell on us at Paddington Station. She was altogether too open and friendly.”
“That’s what I liked about her,” said Mary Anne.
“I was taken in myself at first. Then Ulysses spoke up.”
“What did he say?” asked the detective.
“‘O these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give accosting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader.’”
“That sounds like her, Professor. She could talk the hind leg off a donkey. ‘Glib of tongue’ sums her up perfectly.”
“In short, she was thoroughly un-English. A clear danger sign.”
“I didn’t see it,” said Mary Anne, shaken by the turn of events. “Both of them fooled me. I feel such an idiot.”
Cyrus chuckled. “I don’t,” he said. “It was rather exciting to be caught up in this crime spree and to play a small part in convicting the villains. Their problem was that they chose the wrong profession.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, honey. They were both such accomplished actors that they could easily have made a living on the stage. Instead of using the Shakespeare Express as a base for their crimes,” he pointed out, “they could have caught it to come to work here in Stratford.”
THE OTHER HALF by Colin Dexter
Recently retired, aged fifty, from Thames Valley Police, with the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, I now styled myself a freelance investigator – and business was bad. The previous week my sole assignment had been to examine the dubious legality of a Bulgarian immigrant keeping a boa constrictor in his council-house bath. I was therefore hopeful of better prospects when the phone rang early on Monday morning.
Mrs Isobel Rodgers introduced herself with a pleasing, slightly husky voice and I guessed the state of play immediately – husband trouble. As I was listening to myself telling her that ninety-five per cent of wives underwent the same affliction, she interrupted me, saying, “Is it my turn to speak now?”
She was, she claimed, almost completely certain of her husband’s infidelity, and was determined to get rid of that “almost”. When I asked if she wanted anything else, she replied simply, “Divorce.” Before I could comment further, she terminated the interview by saying, “It will be worth your while. Come round and see me. You have your diary handy?”
I was in due course ushered into a detached house in North Oxford by this peremptory lady, who was younger than I’d imagined and considerably more attractive, with brown hair framing a pair of startling eyes. Green eyes.
“Drink?”
I shook my head, congratulating myself on not trotting out the policeman’s cliché, whilst she leaned back in a black leather armchair, fondling a tumbler of what looked like water, but most probably wasn’t.