Chapter 4: Philately

I was introspecting, my musings being helped by the use of my pipe, though not for its intended purpose – I hadn’t smoked at all for some years. I didn’t like cigarettes. Cigars had some appeal. but took my breath away. That left the pipe, which I’d never been able to keep alight for more than five minutes at a time. Still, it had other uses, one being that it put prospective clients at ease. They seemed to trust a pipe-smoker, so when they arrived, I usually fussed with the old briar. Then there was the autotherapy. Having heard that nasal oil brings out the grain, I’d taken to rubbing the bowl along the sides of my nose, and do you know, it works. Often, having got the wood nice and shiny, I enjoyed looking at the grain in general and the whorls in particular for ages, when longing for clients.

While doing that very thing, and wondering where the money for the next meal was to come from, I noticed that someone had entered my waiting cubicle – I always had trouble in thinking of it as a room. I picked up a pen and a dummy file and was giving my standard demonstration of a man making notes when there was a knock at the office door. “In,” I said briskly, and a man entered. Insofar as there was a normal run of clients, he wasn’t it. About five-ten, probably early forties and dressed to kill – camel-hair overcoat with black velvet lapels, black Homburg hat, white shirt, maroon silk scarf, plain burgundy tie and, under the topcoat, dark-blue trousers, which no doubt accorded with the rest of his garb. “Morning,” I said, motioning him to the visitors’ chairs. “Have a seat.”

He hitched up his pants, sat, crossed his legs and removed the hat, showing me plenty of well-groomed black hair. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “Am I addressing Cyril Potts?” Quaint.

“You are. What can I do for you?”

He cleared his throat. “My name is Timothy Longworth. I’ve had a misfortune.” His speech was, I thought, almost too cultivated. “I’ve been robbed.”

“Of what, Mr Longworth?”

“Stamps, sir. Postage stamps. I’d like you to investigate.”

“Hmn. Well, first things first. Your address please, then the details.”

He lived in a row house in Saint Andrew’s Square, a well regarded spot. He was into stocks and shares and his hobby was philately. The only other occupant of his home was the housekeeper, Miss Muriel Kemp, who had been with his father until the latter’s death, three years earlier. Timothy had kept the lady on. Then we got to the point.

“The stamps, Mr Longworth,” I said. “I don’t know much about the subject. Would you explain?”

“Certainly. My own little collection is of no consequence – a few trifles I’ve picked up since childhood, mainly because of the pretty pictures, you understand.”

“Yes, I see.” I didn’t but agreement about trivia saves time.

“Now,” he said, “when my uncle, Joseph Longworth, died last November, I went up to Ashfield to clear out his possessions. He’d rented a furnished house, so mostly it was just clothing and a modest array personal effects, of no interest to anyone but him. However, I found a dozen stamps. I was surprised, as I had no idea that he’d concerned himself with such things. They were Cape triangulars, over a hundred years old and very valuable.”

“How much are we speaking of?”

“Variable individually, but the whole lot would be worth around sixty thousand dollars.”

“Are they a set, or independent?”

“There’s no great collective increment. Broadly speaking, each has it’s own value.”

“And the disappearance?”

“Pure opportunism, I would say. On the eighteenth of this month, I left for a business trip. As she was not required during my absence, Miss Kemp decided to visit her father in Stagville. She departed shortly before I did and returned several hours after I came back, the following day. When I arrived home, I found the front door unlocked, the safe in my study open and the stamps gone.”

“Only the stamps?”

“Yes. There was nothing else of commercial value.”

“Any evidence of forced entry?”

“No. Both door and safe had been opened conventionally.”

“Does anyone but you know the safe’s combination?”

“As far as I’m aware, it was never known to anyone but my father and myself.”

“Have you tried the police?”

He shook his head. “Mr Potts, I am a reclusive man. I do not wish to invoke the official forces, admirable though they may be.”

After we’d exchanged a few more words, I agreed to act and Longworth left, the understanding being that I would call on him. He seemed to see little point in that, but I assured him that there was nothing to beat starting out at the crime scene.

For me this was new territory. As I’d intimated to Longworth, I knew little about stamps. However, I did know that there was a dealer by the name of Edwin Graves in a neighbouring town. I phoned him and arranged a meeting for that afternoon.

Arriving at three o’clock on the dot, I found that Graves, a tall thin chap of, I guessed, seventy-odd, did his business from home. He seemed vague, as though in a world of his own. I was ushered into into his study, where I explained my mission.

“Cape triangulars,” he mumbled. “There’s a thing. You know, one of the most prominent people in our little firmament reported the theft of twelve of them, only a short time ago. William Birdsall of Chicago. Perhaps you’ve heard the name.”

I confessed my ignorance, but made a mental note that the connection appeared promising. There was nothing more to be got from Graves, so I returned to the office. The next step was routine. It was standard procedure for me to check, as far as possible, everything I heard, especially from clients.

The matter of Longworth’s late uncle seemed worth validating – not that I doubted what my client had said. Well, not really. I didn’t want to wear myself out with a trip to Ashfield, but thought of Stan Hodges, an insurance assessor who lived in the sticks, some way from the place but much closer to it than I was. We’d met about two years earlier and had occasionally swapped legwork and were on the same wavelength in general. I’d have to get him quickly, as the TV promised a repeat of ‘Shane’, and I didn’t want to miss that. As usual, Stan allowed the phone to ring umpteen times before he answered with a weary-sounding “Yeah.”

“Good day, Country Mouse. Greetings from the Great Wen,” I bawled.” Affable.

“Ah, Pondhopper,” he groaned. “Go away. I’m busy.”

“Can it, Marlowe,” I said. “You’re never too pressed to earn five crisp new sawbucks for purely nominal services.”

“Listen, big city man,” he snapped, “For the full century, maybe. For half, I don’t move from this sofa.”

“You don’t have a sofa, jackass,” I said.

“Get metaphorical, can’t you?” was his pained response.

I reckoned that put us about even. “Look,” I said, “I just want you to go over to that hogwallow you call a town and check the records. That can’t be worth a C. Be reasonable.”

“All right, give.”

I told him what I wanted. “Couldn’t you do it by phone,” he whined.

“Probably,” I said, “but this is something I want to see with your own feet.”

“Okay,” he said. “I need some groceries anyway. Stand by the office phone tomorrow, midday. You do still go to the office, I assume.”

“Get to it, tiger,” I said. “I’ll be in situ.”

That was enough for me. I strolled along the block to my local cholesterol emporium, ate something forgettable, then went home and settled down to events in Wyoming, circa 1890. Shortly after Wilson got his comeuppance from Shane, I opted for an early night, wondering why Fletcher in the book turned out to be Ryker in the film. Maybe somebody thought that Ryker sounded nastier. And why did old Rufe have a brother in the film? I didn’t recall one in the book. Things like that troubled me. I topped off the day with a slug of my preferred poison – a fine Amontillado.

At 10.15 the following morning, I called at the Longworth residence. It was as desirable a place as I’d expected, on the west side of an iron-fenced square of immaculate turf, mature trees and, I thought, attractive shrubbery. Like all the others, the house was fronted by a short flight of stone steps leading up to the door and, under the single ground-level window, a basement giving onto a paved area behind black iron railings, matching those around the square’s greenery. A big dark-blue BMW car claimed most of the road outside the house.

I was admitted by the housekeeper, Muriel Kemp. Excluding the odd snippet from films set in Victorian England, I hadn’t seen anything like her. She seemed to be a leftover from way back. A little older than her employer, she was about five-foot-nine and wore a long mid-grey dress buttoned to the throat and black flat-heeled shoes. The dark-brown hair was bunned and there were no baubles on display. Somehow, I sensed that there was more to this woman than met the eye.

I joined Longworth in his study, revisited the ground we’d already covered, then made a decision. “I think it might be helpful if you bring in Mrs Danvers,” I said.

“Who? Do you mean Miss Kemp?”

“Yes, sorry,” I corrected, thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have read so many novels.

He summoned her and we went through the details. The story was plausible enough. On the morning in question, Longworth had flown to Boston to meet his stockbroker. He had left at nine a.m. Freed from her duties, Muriel Kemp had departed at noon, to visit her father. She was sure she had left both front and back doors locked and the windows closed. There was no alarm system. Longworth had returned the following afternoon, to find the position he’d already described. Muriel Kemp got back that evening. Neither had anything to add.

I went back to the office and waited for news from Stan Hodges. He phoned at noon as promised. “Negative,” he said. “Nobody named Longworth in the Ashfield area died in November, or a month either side.”

So much for my client’s credibility. “You’re wonderful,” I said. Your loot’s in transit and may the Sun never set upon your caravanserai.”

“May your camels produce much dung.” he answered. “Now scram.”

I didn’t fancy a major outing, but it seemed clear that I would need to go to Chicago. I phoned the stamp dealer, William Birdsall, who agreed to meet me the following afternoon.

The philatelic Mecca was a small narrow-fronted place, sandwiched between a tobacconist and a health food store – a nice irony, I thought – in a short alley. The only thing that marked my man’s premises as a little different from the neighbouring ones was a metal grille covering his window and interfering with a clear view of what was on offer.

Birdsall was an elderly chap – were all people in this business of similar vintage, I wondered. He was short and stout, with tufts of white hair over his ears, bracketing an otherwise bare pink scalp. Having already explained my task, I needed only to go into the circumstances of his loss.