“Mr. Pulling?” the detective asked.
“Yes.”
“May we come in for a few moments?”
“Have you a warrant?” I asked.
“Oh no, no, it hasn’t come to that. We just want to have a word or two with you.”
I wanted to say something about the Gestapo, but I thought it wiser not. I led them into the dining-room, but I didn’t ask them to sit down. The detective showed me an identity card and I read on it that he was Detective-Sergeant Sparrow, John.
“You know a man called Wordsworth, Mr. Pulling?”
“Yes, he’s a friend of my aunt’s.”
“Did you receive a package from him in the street yesterday?”
“I certainly did.”
“Would you have any objection to our examining the package, Mr. Pulling?”
“I most certainly would.”
“You know, sir, we could easily have obtained a search warrant, but we wanted to do things delicately. Have you known this man Wordsworth a long time?”
“I met him for the first time yesterday.”
“Perhaps, sir, he asked you as a favour to deliver that package and you, seeing no harm at all in that and him being an employee of your aunt…”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. The package is mine. I had accidentally left it in the kitchen.”
“The package is yours, sir? You admit that.”
“You know very well what’s in the package. My aunt told you. It’s an urn with my mother’s ashes.”
“Your aunt has been in communication with you, has she?”
“Yes, she has. What do you expect? Waking up an old lady in the middle of the night.”
“It had only just gone twelve, sir. And so those ashes… They are Mrs. Pulling’s?”
“There they are. You can see for yourself. On the bookcase.” I had put the urn there temporarily, until I was ready to bed it, above a complete set of Sir Walter Scott[36] which I had inherited from my father. In his lazy way my father was a great reader, though not an adventurous one. He was satisfied with possessing a very few favourite authors. By the time he had read the set of Scott through he had forgotten the earlier volumes and was content to begin again with Guy Mannering. He had a complete set too of Marion Crawford, and he had a love of nineteenth-century poetry which I have inherited – Tennyson[37] and Wordsworth and Browning[38] and Palgrave’s[39] Golden Treasury.
“Do you mind if I take a look?” the detective asked, but naturally he couldn’t open the urn. “It’s sealed,” he said. “With Scotch tape.”
“Naturally. Even a tin of biscuits…”
“I would like to take a sample for analysis.”
I was becoming rather cross[40] by this time. I said, “If you think I am going to let you play around with my poor mother in a police laboratory…”
“I can understand how you feel, sir,” he said, “but we have rather serious evidence to go on. We took some fluff from the man Wordsworth’s pockets and when analysed it contained pot.”
“Pot?”
“Marijuana to you, sir. Likewise Cannabis.”
“Wordsworth’s fluff has got nothing to do with my mother.”
“We could get a warrant, sir, easily enough, but seeing how you may be an innocent dupe, I would rather take the urn away temporarily with your permission. It would sound much better that way in court.”
“You can check with the crematorium. The funeral was only yesterday.”
“We have already, sir, but you see it’s quite possible – don’t think I’m presuming to suggest your line of defence, that’s a matter entirely for your counsel – that the man Wordsworth took out the ashes and substituted pot. He may have known he was being watched. Now wouldn’t it be much better, sir, from all points of view to know for certain that these are your mother’s ashes? Your aunt told us you planned to keep it in your garden – you wouldn’t want to see that urn every day and wonder, Are those really the ashes of the dear departed or are they an illegal supply of marijuana?”
He had a very sympathetic manner, and I really began to see his point[41].
“We’d only take out a tiny pinch, sir, less than a teaspoonful. We’d treat the rest with all due reverence.”
“All right,” I said, “take your pinch. I suppose you are only doing your duty.” The young policeman had been making notes all the time.
The detective said, “Take a note that Mr. Pulling behaved most helpfully and that he voluntarily surrendered the urn. That will sound well in court, sir, if the worst happens.”
“When will I get the urn back?”
“Not later than tomorrow – if all is as it should be.” He shook hands quite cordially as if he believed in my innocence, but perhaps that was just his professional manner.
Of course I hastened to telephone to my aunt. “They’ve taken away the urn,” I said. “They think my mother’s ashes are marijuana. Where’s Wordsworth?”
“He went out after breakfast and hasn’t come back.”
“They found marijuana dust in the fluff of his suit.”
“Oh dear, how careless of the poor boy. I thought he was a little disturbed. And he asked for a CTC before he went out.”
“Did you give him one?”
“Well, you know, I’m really very fond of him, and he said it was his birthday. He never had a birthday last year, so I gave him twenty pounds.”
“Twenty pounds! I never keep as much as that in the house.”
“It will get him as far as Paris. He left in time for the Golden Arrow, now I come to think of it, and he always carries his passport to prove he’s not an illegal immigrant. Do you know, Henry, I’ve a great desire for a little sea air myself.”
“You’ll never find him in Paris.”
“I wasn’t thinking of Paris. I was thinking of Istanbul.”
“Istanbul is not on the sea.”
“I think you are wrong. There’s something called the Sea of Marmara.”
“Why Istanbul?”
“I was reminded of it by that letter from Abdul the police found. A strange coincidence. First that letter and then this morning in the post another – the first for a very long time.”
“From Abdul?”
“Yes.”
It was weak of me, but I did not then realize the depth of my aunt’s passion for travel. If I had I would have hesitated before I made the first fatal proposal: “I have nothing particular to do today. If you would like to go to Brighton…”
Chapter 5
Brighton was the first journey I undertook in my aunt’s company and proved a bizarre foretaste of much that was to follow.
We arrived in the early evening, for we had decided to spend the night. I was surprised by the smallness of her luggage, which consisted only of a little white leather cosmetics case which she called her baise en ville