The Guilty Are Afraid

“Thanks, Lieutenant. One more thing: did you get anywhere with your digging into Thelma Cousins’ background?”

“No. She just hasn’t any background. We’ve asked around. Hahn seems to be right. She didn’t go with men. It beats me what she was doing with Sheppey.”

“You have her last address, Lieutenant?”

“She had a room at 379 Maryland Road. The landlady’s name is Mrs. Beecham. You won’t get anything out of her. Candy spent an hour with her. She had nothing to tell him.”

“Thanks,” I said. “If anything new turns up, I’ll call you.” And I hung up.

I went into the bedroom, put on a suit, shoved the .38 in my shoulder holster, then left the bungalow, locked the door after me and got the Buick out of the garage. The time was now a quarter past five. There was still plenty of heat in the sun, and as I drove along the promenade I could see the long stretch of beach was crowded. I pulled up by a cop who was resting his feet on the edge of the kerb and asked him where Maryland Road was. He gave me directions. The road lay at the back of the town and it took me some twenty minutes of fighting traffic to get there.

Mrs. Beecham was a fat, elderly body with a friendly smile and an inclination to gossip.

I told her I was connected with the St. Raphael Courier and could she give me some information about Thelma Cousins.

She invited me into a room full of plush-covered furniture, a canary in a cage, three cats and a collection of photographs that looked as if they had been taken fifty years ago.

When we had sat down I told her I was writing a piece about Thelma and I was interested to know if she had a boyfriend.

Mrs. Beecham’s fat face clouded.

“The police officer asked that. She hadn’t. I often told her she should have some nice young man, but she was so bound up in the church. . .”

“You don’t think she had a secret boyfriend, Mrs. Beecham?” I asked. “You know how it is. Some girls are shy and they don’t let on they have someone.”

Mrs. Beecham shook her head emphatically.

“I’ve known Thelma for five years. If there had been anyone, she would have told me. Besides, she very seldom went out. The only time she did go out after she had finished her work was on Tuesdays and Fridays. It was then she went to the church to help Father Matthews.”

“She might have told you she was going to the church but she could have been going out with a boyfriend. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Beecham said, and looked shocked. “Thelma wasn’t like that at all. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Did she ever have visitors here, Mrs. Beecham?”

“She had her friends from time to time. Two girls from the School of Ceramics and a girl who did church work.”

“No men?”

“Never.”

“Did a man ever call on her here?”

“No. I wouldn’t have encouraged it. I don’t believe in young girls having men in their rooms. Besides, Thelma wouldn’t have done such a thing.”

I took out my billfold and produced a photograph of Sheppey.

“Did this man ever call on Miss Cousins?”

She studied the photograph and then shook her head.

“I’ve never seen him before. No man ever called on her.”

“Did a blonde, smartly dressed woman ever call on her? A woman of about thirty-six . . . wealthy?”

She began to look bewildered.

“Why, no. Just her three friends and Father Matthews; nobody else.”

It looked then to me as if Thrisby had been lying when he had said both Sheppey and Bridgette had gone to Thelma’s place.

“On the day she died, did anything unusual happen? Did anyone come to see her, did she get a letter, or did someone call her on the telephone?”

“The police officer asked that. Nothing happened out of the way. She left as usual at eight-thirty to get to the School at nine. She always came back here for lunch. When she didn’t come back as usual, I got worried. When she didn’t turn up at her usual time after work I first called Father Matthews, and then the police.”

Rankin was right. It was like digging into concrete. I thanked the old girl, said she had helped me and got away with difficulty.

As I walked back to the Buick, I was feeling a little depressed. I realized I hadn’t made the progress I thought I had. It seemed pretty certain to me now that Thrisby had been lying.

II

Around nine o’clock I drove out to the White Chateau. It was growing dusk as I got on to the mountain road, and as the sun set, the sky and the sea turned an orange red. From the height of the road, the view of St. Raphael City was magnificent.

But I wasn’t in much of a mood to admire the view. I had too much on my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking from time to time that in an hour and a half I would have Margot with me in the isolation of the bungalow.

I drove fast, using my spotlight to warn traffic coming in the opposite direction that I was on my way. I reached the branch road down to the White Chateau soon after nine-thirty. Leaving the Buick on the roadside, I walked down the road until I came to the wooden gate. I pushed this open and walked quietly up the path. By now the sun had set, and it had grown suddenly very dark.