The Players and the Game by Julian Symons

Author:Julian Symons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Players and the Game
ISBN: 9780755129683
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hazleton called round at Bay Trees on the following evening. Alice Vane opened the door, took him into the living-room where cards were spread out on the table, and called her husband. He came in wearing old trousers, dirty at the knees. He explained that he had been down in the cellar.

‘Marvellous, the cellars in these old houses. Just fixing some wine racks to the walls for all the bottles we haven’t got.’

Hazleton considered him. Vane had hair rather longer than the DCI approved of, but he seemed an agreeable enough fellow, and looking at Alice’s delicate profile bent over the cards he thought that she must have been a beauty in her time. Plender had said there was something odd about them, but to Hazleton they appeared a normal couple.

‘Another grilling, Inspector? It was your sergeant last time. Are you prepared to drink with me? I believe that’s always a good sign.’

Hazleton accepted a whisky, and waited until it was in front of him. ‘It’s about an Olivetti portable typewriter that was in your possession, sir. I should like to know where you got it and when, and where it is now.’

‘My little Olivetti.’ Many criminals are good actors – indeed, they tend to over-react rather in a ham actor’s manner, and Vane’s appearance of surprise meant nothing in itself. ‘But what on earth’s that got to do with anything? Jen’s got it now, hasn’t she?’

His wife, bent over the cards, said, ‘Yes.’

‘We’ve seen Miss Vane. I understand she’s had it only for the last few days. It’s an earlier period we’re interested in.’

‘Do you mind telling me why?’

The DCI said formally, ‘A letter we believe to have had a connection with the case was typed on that machine.’

‘On my machine?’

‘There’s no doubt about it. It was typed at some time before the twenty-seventh of May, probably a few days earlier.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, there isn’t anything I can say. I bought the Olivetti about eight years ago, used it quite a bit at one time for typing reports and so on, not much lately. Then it was in store. It moved here with us – no, come to think of it, a few weeks before us. It was in the stuff we had moved in here before we came in ourselves, isn’t that so, love?’

‘I believe so,’ Alice said, muffled.

‘When we bought this house we had some trouble more or less at the last minute. The seller had a higher offer. That was after we’d moved in a lot of stuff because we thought everything was settled. In the end our agent persuaded him that he ought to take our offer.’

‘Tell me about it. And if you can do some checking of dates I’ll be glad.’ The inventory from the storage firm showed that several items, including one portable typewriter, had been delivered to the house on the tenth of May. The Vanes had moved in on the first of June.

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