TP Fielden - Resort to Murder - A must-read vintage crime mystery

He looked rather sad as he said it, and Judy asked, gently, ‘Yes?’

‘Look, we hardly know each other. On the other hand, we share a desk and I very much hope I shall be on the Riviera Express for a long time to come,’ said Valentine. ‘I may as well come clean.’

Oh dear, thought Miss Dimont, thinking of Mulligatawny and her supper, I hope this isn’t going to take all night. I shouldn’t have inquired.

‘I’m grateful to be here,’ said Valentine, looking out to sea. ‘Very. Life to date has not been entirely kind. I hadn’t realised when I applied for the job that this – this journalism, this local newspaper business – is not just a way of life, it is a life. I can see that these people, the ones you work with, are your family.

‘I have a family – you seem to have met a few already, in conversation anyway – but it’s not the same. They’re all pretty distant. My father was an alcoholic and died when I was four. All he left me was the title and …’

‘Title?’

‘Lowest of the low. Baronet. I don’t use it.’

‘Sir Valentine Waterford?’

‘Bit too much of a mouthful, wouldn’t you say? Got me into all kinds of trouble at school and of course in the army, since I never rose above the rank of Trooper. Though, of course, they wanted me to put in for a commission – but I preferred it where I was.’

He lit a cigarette and went on.

‘That’s not the confession. The confession is, I’ve been here two days and I absolutely adore it. I couldn’t believe that there could be so much … humanity out there to be discovered. You went to sea with the fishermen yesterday, I went to the police station. This morning we were in court, we went and saw that positively creepy woman …’

‘Nothing creepy about her, Valentine. Learn to look below the surface.’

‘OK. Bet you half-a-crown there’s something wrong about her, remember I’ve spent most of my life cooped up with odd-bods and I know one when I see one. Anyway, we saw her and then down here to meet the most important beat group in the country.’

‘You met them?’

‘I went backstage, I told you. More about that in a minute.’

He got up and looked down at Judy. ‘I don’t want to hang on your coat tails,’ he said. ‘You’ve been already more than kind – it’s sink or swim, I know that, I have to make my own way.

‘What I want to know is, do you think I’ll make it?’

Miss Dimont was not quite sure what he meant. ‘What was that you were saying about rolling up the carpet?’

He sat down again and pushed back his hair. ‘Nothing ever stays the same. I was born in a sort of castle, but when my father died, it went. So that was gone. My uncle paid for me to go to school and I liked him very much but after the war he went to live in France, so he was gone. My mother – well, she was never what you’d call interested in child-rearing and she’d always hankered after a moat. She found the chap with the moat, but the moat didn’t want children so I got dumped on an aunt in Eastbourne. Then she died in a car accident – d’you see what I mean about rolling up the carpet?’

‘You don’t have any brothers and sisters?’

‘Alas no. Some cousins but it’s not the same. Actually, I get on better with some of the chaps in my troop in the army. Different background, but solid as they come.’

‘From the sound of it you didn’t inherit any money.’

Valentine laughed sheepishly. ‘You see this suit? That’s what I inherited. Doesn’t fit terribly well either, does it?

‘So you see,’ he went on, ‘this is the first piece of good fortune I’ve had in quite a while. But before I start to believe in it, I want to know your opinion. D’you think I’ll last the course?’

‘Yes,’ said Judy, after a pause. ‘I think you probably will. Just work hard, and don’t fall in love with the idea of being a journalist. It’s the worst thing you can do.’

The pair walked slowly back to the office. It was brewing day at Gardner’s and the precious aroma of hops and yeast still hung heavy in the air, divinely guiding their footsteps towards the Express .

‘So these Urge are terrible yobs?’ asked Miss Dimont.

‘Very nice actually, except the one with the guitar. I think they care very much that what they do is good, of its sort, and they were very happy to talk to me about the making of hit records. I made some notes. Thought it might make an article – I was going to mention it to Mr Rhys.’

‘Depends. You’ve got yourself a scoop talking to the most famous beat group in the country,’ said Judy, ‘but who knows which way Mr Rhys will jump when he hears about the riots – he automatically steers away from what he sees as trouble. I should keep your powder dry for the time being.’

Back in the office car park, Judy was reunited with her beloved Herbert and together they made their way home. All too soon the streets of Temple Regis would be jammed with holidaymakers, but so far only the early birds had come to fill the hotels and B &Bs, and by common consent, they’d decided to make an early night of it. Or maybe it was Eamonn Andrews on the TV compering What’s My Line .

Mulligatawny was waiting when she got home, threading himself through her legs as she came in the door so that she had to pick him up to avoid falling over. These warm evenings he would often go out mousing, but only when she got home. If she was working, he faithfully kept guard until her return.

‘Oh, Mull,’ she sighed, ‘what a DAY! All that noise, all those people – as if having a mysterious death wasn’t enough! And that poor chap who’s come to work on the paper. He looks so dashing but he’s a very sad figure. Sadder, I think, than even he admits.’ Mulligatawny, though, was uninterested in this line of conversation and settled firmly into her lap as, supper having been taken, the pair sat down for an hour with the radio.

This was thinking time for both Miss Dimont and for Mulligatawny, for though cats live independent lives, they like to be sure of certain things. And Mulligatawny liked to be sure of his mistress. He dug his claws in ever so slightly.

Judy had taken up her novel – a moment’s bliss at the end of such a busy day! – but her eyes were on the photograph on the silver frame on the mantelpiece.

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