Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“Of course they did. They came into the auditorium with us.”

“But did they stay?-that’s the question.”

“Ignore my husband,” she said with a touch of irritation. “He’s had a lapse of memory. I can vouch for them. Rosalind and Anthony Walker saw that play this afternoon.” She looked at Cyrus. “How can you possibly deny it?”

“Because I don’t like being used, Mary Anne.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The sergeant will explain.”

Rushton took his cue. “At approximately eleven o’clock this morning,” he told them, “a jewelry shop in Banbury was robbed. The manager was injured in the process. The thief-a young man answering the description of Anthony Walker-got away with a substantial amount of jewelry.”

“It couldn’t possibly have been him, Sergeant,” said Mary Anne defensively. “He was on the train and it doesn’t even stop at Banbury.”

“Yes, it does,” observed Cyrus.

“It’s not a proper scheduled stop,” continued the detective. “They slip a carriage at the station, that’s all. No passengers are allowed to join the train.”

“But they could leave it.”

“They could indeed, Professor Hillier. You stopped at Banbury at ten forty-one. That fits in with the timing of the robbery.”

“Did anyone see Anthony Walker leaving the train?” asked Mary Anne, refusing to believe that he could be implicated in a crime. “Well, did they?”

“No, Mrs. Hillier.”

“There you are, then.”

“You don’t understand, Mary Anne,” said her husband gently. “Rosalind’s brother could not leave the train because he was never on it in the first place.”

“Yes, he was. You saw them get on together.”

“I saw her get into the train with a young man but there’s no guarantee that it was Anthony. Apart from anything else, he lifted his hat to her when they met. Is that the kind of greeting you’d expect from a brother?” He looked at Rushton. “My guess is that it was Rosalind who got off at Banbury.”

“Quite right, sir,” said Rushton. “The stationmaster confirms it.”

“I begin to see why she never mentioned that stop to us. She told us everything else about the Shakespeare Express.”

Mary Anne was baffled. “What’s going on?” she wondered.

“We were tricked into providing an alibi.”

“I don’t understand. All that we did was talk to her. In any case,” she went on, “how can Rosalind possibly be involved in the crime? The sergeant said that it was committed by a young man.”

“We’ve reason to believe that she was at the wheel of the car that was waiting outside the jewelry shop,” said Rushton seriously. “We have a number of witnesses who saw it being driven away at speed by a woman.”

“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.”