[The Girl From UNCLE 04] - The Cornish Pixie Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 5

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The rain stopped and the sound of the sea rolled up from beyond the harbour as they climbed the steps of a huge trailer in polished aluminium. The garish slogan streaming across its front below the roof said, Bosustow's Circus — All The Fun of the Fair on your Doorstep!

Ephraim Bosustow, the proprietor, was a red faced man of 65 with a surly manner and twin tramlines of irritation scoring his brow.

He pushed away a sheaf of papers and rose to his feet as the Superintendent knocked to enter a living space as well designed and fitted with gleaming woods as the Captain's quarters on a flagship. "I've told 'ee afore, Mr. Curnow," he said in exasperation, "that I have nowt more to say. I already told your young feller everything there was to know 'smorning. And again yesterday, if it come to that, when you was by 'ere yourself. Can't for the life of me think what questions there are left to ask."

"Terribly sorry to trouble again," Curnow said soothingly. "But there are certain things we have to go over again and again. Murder is one of them. Now exactly what do you recall of the events leading up to the discovery of the body?"

"I told 'ee. Sweet damn-all. Being up late the night afore, I'd slept late — and the first thing I knew, young Tommy Bascoe was here, batterin' on the door and yellin' blue murder... Well, you know what I mean…"

"And you came straight out, went with him to the booth, and then drove down to the police station to report the murder?"

"After we'd had a bit of a chinwag, yes. But you know that."

"I only know what I've been told, Mr. Bosustow. What had you to discuss? Why did you not come at once?"

"We don't get murders every day," the old man said sullenly. "Nobody knew quite what to do, who we ought to call."

"But you did know it was murder?"

"Now you're twisting what I say. Trust a ruddy copper! One of the reasons we rabbited so long was because we didn't know how she had died. There was nothing to show. Some of us wanted to move her and call a doctor; others said it might be foul play and we'd better leave her be."

Abruptly, Curnow varied his attack. "Miss Duncan was engaged to be married to your son," he said. "Did you approve?"

"My youngest son. I didn't approve or disapprove. Long as they paid me the rent for the concessions, their private life was their own affair."

"But you were upset when your prospective daughter-in-law was killed?"

"'Course I was upset. And then again I don't know how I'm goin' to get someone else to take over the souvenir kiosk at this time of the year. There's not a soul visiting the side- shows this month, the boy's been put off his stonework by some fool trouble or other, and your bloomin' town council duns me every week for some absurd sum for rent for this waterlogged field."

"I don't know," Curnow said, "you seem to be doing alright every time I pass. Plenty of people in — especially the kids."

"Rubbish!" the proprietor said angrily. "They come in to rubberneck, not to spend. I'm practically bankrupt, if you must know. There isn't an ounce of business left in this Godforsaken part of the country, not after September."

"I understand there had been trouble between Miss Duncan and your son over another man," Curnow said. "What was it all about? Is he so hotheaded?"

Bosustow shrugged. "I know nothing about their affairs," he said. "I told you, as long as they pay their debts, they're free to do as they like."

The old man stubbornly refused to be drawn any further on the subject of his youngest son's impending marriage, his mercurial temperament, and his relations, good or bad, with the girl who had been about to become his wife.

"It's a rum go, Mr. Slate, if you ask me," Curnow said as they made their way to the caravan occupied by Bosustow's eldest son. "A very rum go. There's something funny about this affair, mark my words. We get a feeling in my business — and I feel sure there's something being held back here."

"By Bosustow himself, or in the circus generally?" Slate asked.

"All over," the policeman replied. "You see if I'm not right."

And in truth the reception they met with this time did nothing to confound his words. Harry Bosustow was as red-faced as his father, but stockier and even more ill-tempered to look at. He was sitting at a desk in the huge converted pantechnicon in which he lived, scowling at a strip of negatives which he was holding up to the light. More lengths of film were pegged to a line stretching from side to side of the caravan, and at the farther side of this a brassy blonde with too much makeup and bowed legs was totting up figures in a thick ledger. The sycamore panelling and fitted furniture was as sterile and impersonal as the neat home of Bosustow senior.

"You again!" the man said after they had knocked and entered. "I thought we'd seen the last of you. What more do you want to know?... And in any case, couldn't you do your cross-examination somewhere else? My wife, as you see, looks after the box-office and the general finances of this show — and there's an audit due at any day. So any questioning or cross-examination in here is bound to disturb her. And I do feel —"

"Look, Mr. Bosustow, cut that out," Curnow rapped. "This is a murder investigation and I don't give a damn about auditors or accountants or anybody else who attempts to get in my way. You seem to forget — all of you — that a woman has been done to death on your property. For all the signs of regret that I've seen, she might as well have been a stranger, but she was in fact almost a relative. I shall ask as many questions as I want — and if you know what's good for you, you and your brothers will answer them..."

The man shrugged angrily and threw down the strip of film. "People waiting for their prints," he muttered. "How can I build up a candid connection if I keep on being interrupted? Delivering on time's half the battle in this game."

"I only have one question to ask you," Curnow said, repressing a smile. "People say your intended sister-in-law was two-timing your young brother with an older man, a local man with a lot of money. D'you know if that was true?"

"If it was, I never heard anything of it," the other growled. He picked up his negative again and ostentatiously turned his back on them. The blonde raised her eyes momentarily from her ledger and then looked down once more.

They next visited Sara Bosustow, who was swarthy, meatily built, with a fine down of moustache on her upper lip, and was the most obvious equestrienne he had ever seen, Mark thought. She was trying on a silver lace-up boot with the help of a flabby woman with glittering eyes whom he imagined must be Mrs. Bosustow senior, the palmist. In a corner of her trailer lounged a man whose waxed whiskers would have branded him as the ringmaster brother even had he not boasted the characteristic family expression of mulishness combined with bad temper. The confined space, in welcome contrast to the others they had visited, was a chaos of magazines, filled-up ashtrays, boots, tights, discarded girdles and brassieres, and spangled leotards.

None of them was particularly helpful, but neither was anyone hostile. In turn, they denied stoutly that their youngest brother was (a) bad-tempered, (b) quarrelsome, (c) the sort of person who would kill his fiancee in a fit of jealousy — especially in someone else's booth. The superintendent smiled his grim smile again. "We have witnesses who heard them at it hammer and tongs the night before she was found," he declared.

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