The estate agent’s office, open only in the mornings two days a week in the winter and spring, was manned this morning by Jimmy Johnston, another young man whose job took him regularly between offices in Kingsbridge and Salcombe. Mark Vaughan and Jimmy Johnston had been at school together and were still friends in their late twenties. Sergeant Vaughan was tall and slim with piercing blue eyes. He was a feared centre three-quarter in the county rugby team, famous for gliding through the opposition lines like a man who seems to have left the room without actually opening the door, as the rugby correspondent of the Western Morning News put it.
‘Good to see you, Marky boy,’ said Jimmy, six inches shorter than his friend with a shock of red hair. ‘Are you here on business or dropping in for a chat?’
‘Business, I’m afraid,’ said Sergeant Vaughan, lowering himself into an ancient armchair, ‘and it might be serious.’
‘I see,’ said Jimmy, going to the door and closing it with a sign saying back in half an hour on the side facing the street. ‘Fire ahead, my friend.’
‘The inquiry comes from an Inspector in the Met. He’s investigating a triple murder, I don’t know where. He is interested in a party of two or three people, who might or might not be South Africans, who might or might not be staying in a place in the West Country like Salcombe. They would be in a hotel or a rented house. If troubled, they could be extremely dangerous. Does that ring any bells, Jimmy?’
‘Holy Christ,’ said Jimmy Johnson, ‘I think it does. Just give me a minute to think about it.’ He began pulling papers out of a drawer in his desk and placing them on the table. ‘I’ve been wondering if I should let you know about these people for some time,’ he said. ‘You could say I’ve been expecting you. We have a party of three foreigners, staying in Estuary House just up the road from here, between the Marine Hotel and the Yacht Club. Bloody enormous place, Estuary House, owned by some rich industrialist in Birmingham who asks us to let it for him when he’s not here. They came,’ he consulted his paperwork, ‘at the beginning of January. They took the house for three months. Strange thing was, we never saw any of them at all. The deal was organized through a man from Chesterton’s in London who came down to sort everything out for them. It was if they didn’t want to be seen.’
‘Have you had any dealings with them since? Do they wander about the town and so on?’
‘Not exactly, no. I mean there have been sightings, but only of them inside the house. Every inhabitant of Salcombe now peers up at the windows when he or she goes past. I have no idea if this is correct or not, but the gossip goes that there are three of them, one in his fifties or a bit older, one in his thirties, the last one a bit younger.’ Jimmy paused for a moment and looked at his door as if one of the visitors might be about to walk in. ‘They say,’ he went on, ‘that one of the younger ones has a great black beard, but he hasn’t been seen for a while. The other younger one is clean-shaven. But the really strange thing, and I don’t see how anybody could have invented it, is that the older man has only got one eye. He wears an eye patch on the other, as if he’s some pirate on the Spanish Main.’
‘Can we just go back a moment, Jimmy? The lease on Estuary House, whose name is that in?’
‘It’s in the name of the man from Chesterton’s.’
‘Are you telling me that nobody’s got an idea what these people are called? For all we know it could be Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego looking out at the harbour from that great house up there?’ Sergeant Vaughan’s granny used to read to him from the Scriptures last thing at night.
‘It could, though there are no rumours of our three having been sent into the burning fiery furnace.’
Sergeant Mark Vaughan looked around the office ‘You don’t have a telegraph here, I suppose?’
‘Place is too small,’ said Jimmy. ‘They’ve got one up at the Marine Hotel.’
‘Look, Jimmy,’ said Mark, ‘this could be very serious. I need to tell my bosses here and the police in London need to know all about it. Could you look up what paperwork you have about these people? The man from Chesterton’s, for instance, he must have had a bloody name even if his clients didn’t. And he must have an address. I’m going up to the hotel now. I may have to take a peek at Estuary House on the way.’
Sergeant Mark Vaughan stopped in the middle of the road and stared up at Estuary House. It was on three storeys with great tall windows on the first floor looking out over the harbour. A balcony ran most of the width of the house. On the top floor there were a couple of rooms with smaller balconies and elaborate railings. The curtains were still drawn on the first floor. On top there was a tiny gap, as if somebody needed room to stare out at the harbour and the little town.
Horace Ross, general manager of the Marine Hotel on the other side of the road, lived next door to Mark Vaughan’s aunt in a house near the waterfront.
‘Horace, you old rogue,’ said the sergeant cheerfully. ‘Why didn’t you report that you had some very strange people staying across the way? People have gone to jail for less, you know.’
Horace Ross laughed. ‘I’ll say they’re strange, young man. Do you know, to this day I’ve only set eyes on the youngest one.’
‘Let’s get down to basics then. How many of them are there and what sort of ages?’
‘There are three of them. I’m sure of that because one of the waiters here saw them all sitting down together once. For the last couple of weeks there seem to have been only two of them. The third one has disappeared, or he’s not been seen.’
‘What on earth was your waiter doing over there?’
‘Sorry, Mark, I should have said. They have a lot of their meals delivered to them from the hotel here. Normally one of our waiters takes the food over on a big tray, two if there are a lot of courses, leaves it by the front door and rings the bell. The time they were all seen together the door was left open and our chap assumed he was meant to bring the supper inside.’
‘Age? Appearance?’ Sergeant Vaughan was writing very quickly in his notebook. Outside the windows in Ross’s office the seagulls were performing their dance to welcome the spring, swooping and soaring and shrieking above the water.
‘Oldest one, mid-fifties perhaps? Middle one with the great black beard, thirty-five or thereabouts, I should think. Youngest one mid-twenties. Oh, and I nearly forgot. The oldest one has lost an eye somewhere along the line. He was wearing a crimson eye patch the day our waiter spotted them all.’
‘See here, Horace, I need to ask you some more questions in a minute. But for now I need your telegraph machine. Right now, if you please. I think we’re going to make a Detective Inspector in the Met very happy indeed.’
Mark Vaughan sent his preliminary report to his Inspector in Kingsbridge. He suggested, and was later instructed, to stay in Salcombe for the rest of the day and gather as much information as he could about the mysterious guests in Estuary House.
This time Inspector Devereux did ring Markham Square with the latest news. ‘Lord Powerscourt?’ He was almost shouting with delight. ‘I think we’re in business. Let me read you this wire from Inspector Timpson in Kingsbridge near Salcombe in Devon.
‘“From Inspector Timpson, Devon County Constabulary. To Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police. Re: Triple Murder. Sergeant reports from Salcombe three males staying in Estuary House, large villa by the sea. House lease arranged by London estate agent, address to follow. Eldest, mid-fifties, has lost eye, wears eye patch. Middle one, middle thirties, has long black beard, not seen for some time. Youngest twenty-five to thirty. No contact with the town. Stay in villa. Meals delivered from local hotel. No names known at all. Locals believe they are plotting a major crime somewhere, man with eye patch the mastermind.” What do you think, my lord?’