The Spiral Path

by Richard Grindal

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Everyone had agreed that the industrialist Mark Bascombe had committed suicide, even the coroner. Only Bascombe's son David believed - or professed to believe - that it was murder. And it was he who had hired private investigator John Bryant, rather belatedly it is true, to investigate his father's death. Bryant soon realises that everyone has a secret: Bascombe's wife; his daughters; Colonel Legge; Oscar and Moira Patton: they were all bound together in a series of conflicting and hidden relationships. And the central character - the man who had every answer - was already dead.

Release date: December 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 232

Sample

I met David Bascombe at a party given by Cassirus to celebrate some unimportant and soon-forgotten event. Cassirus lived in a small house in
Belgravia; white-washed, with woodwork painted an anaemic green, and pink geraniums struggling in window boxes. It had an elaborate wrought-iron door with a coloured-glass screen, above which hung
a wrought-iron lantern. Set beside a row of imposing Georgian buildings, the house with its irregular white slabs garnished with pink and green seemed out of place. For this reason it suited
Cassirus, whose chief talent was an ability to look incongruous and slightly ridiculous wherever he was.

His parties had achieved a modest reputation. No one quite knew why. The company was always mixed and consisted of those on the fringes of fame; people who had passed through life just missing
popular acclamation and others with the hopeless look of those who know they will never quite aspire to notoriety. Minor stage celebrities, effeminate Foreign Office officials, cricket Blues,
pseudo-intellectuals, hard-faced widows and débutantes of unimpeachable virtue jostled each other in black-carpeted rooms.

There were two rooms downstairs of an indeterminate function which Cassirus used for his parties. They were both small and angular, scantily furnished in a style which no interior decorator
would care to name. Two or three chairs, elegant but incredibly uncomfortable; black tapestries; a Chinese screen; two tall jade vases each bearing three yellow tulips; an original Modigliani of a
woman with a swan’s neck and liquid eyes; and over all there hung a smell of sandalwood. Here Cassirus moved uneasily among his guests, only a forced smile relieving his features which, in
their anguish, resembled the carved ivory masks hanging from the walls. Not that he was really uneasy. Cassirus knew enough scandal about everybody to fear no one.

At this particular party Bascombe was talking to Julius Goron. I recognized him for he was often photographed with hatchet-faced women at Hunt Balls and I make it my business to study the
magazines of fashion. Julius caught sight of me and beckoned with a fat, manicured hand so that his rings glittered in the half-light. I sauntered over.

‘Cassirus has given us Grade Three of his lighting system,’ I said, ‘I hardly recognized you.’

Julius beamed and stammered out some sort of introduction.

‘What’s this about the lighting?’ asked Bascombe. He was short and slender, and faintly effeminate, but this was offset by an impression he gave of having hidden resources more
potent than mere physical strength. And he was good-looking with brown hair, arched eyebrows and a pale skin; a girl’s lips and eyes that were greyer than the sea, a lifeless sea without
ripple or motion. I imagined he must be about thirty-five.

‘Cassirus has five different lighting schemes for these two rooms varying in intensity from dazzling to murky’, I explained. ‘He uses them for his social projects.’

‘If there are any women here whom he dislikes’, added Julius, ‘he switches on some frightful lights which seem to turn their complexions mauve.’

‘And tonight?’ asked Bascombe. ‘Why this gloomy half-light?’

I looked around the room before I replied: ‘He’s trying to conceal someone I expect. One of his social indiscretions who has crept in uninvited. It isn’t you is it,
Julius?’

Julius giggled. Bascombe, who was evidently new to the Cassirus world, looked around him with faint curiosity. I supplied him with a swift commentary on the various people who were hastening
backwards and forwards in the direction of an improvised bar which had been set up in one corner of the room. Julius interrupted from time to time with gratuitous and scandalous comments on their
private lives. It was not for nothing that he ran a School of Stage Dancing and Deportment with sixty young girl pupils.

‘All this is strange to me’, remarked Bascombe. ‘I’m not very often in London.’

It may have been my imagination but I seemed to detect a trace of disdain in his voice.

‘With two hundred and seventeen acres of Sussex pasture and woodland’, I commented, ‘London must seem cramped to you.’

He looked at me quickly. ‘You seem very well-informed.’

‘I have a statistical mind.’

I could also have told him with fair accuracy his income. His father, Mark Bascombe, had been a director of nine large companies and had controlled 70 per cent of the shares in Bascombe
Chemicals, besides drawing rents from a large area in Mayfair. His name was significant. Less than a month ago he had committed suicide. The newspapers had carried the story—‘Wealthy
Industrialist found Shot in Bed’—with a wealth of detail, morbid, financial and irrelevant. I had pigeon-holed these facts in my memory under the heading ‘Information—Likely
to be useful’.

That was all the conversation I had with David on that occasion, but I had an idea that we would meet again. It was a hunch, nothing more. His name had cropped up in conversation more than once
in the last few days when I had been present, and it was a coincidence that I should find him there talking to Julius. Coincidence has a long arm they will tell you. Also, unlike lightning, it
strikes in the same place—often. I had a feeling that the machine was in motion now, shaping events, moving people closer and swinging them round together in concentric circles, working out
what people, according to their creed, will call chance, destiny, fate or God’s Will. The name of Bascombe was beginning to have a new and fuller meaning.

Meanwhile Julius had led David off and was affably introducing him to a couple of bright-eyed actresses. That was the only technique Julius knew and I wondered what amount he was hoping to
persuade David to invest in the dancing school. Julius was always hoping. He was born to hope as other men are born to sorrow. I lit a cigarette, replenished my glass with some indifferent Scotch,
and decided to do the rounds myself.

Nothing unusual happened. I met a lean young man in a hairy suit and a checked shirt that needed washing, who took me on one side and explained his Great Idea. He was translating the Beethoven
Quartets into colour and from colour into verse. It would be an epic.

‘Every chord has a colour tone with slight variations according to the invertion’, he explained. ‘And every colour tone has a poetic significance that can be transcribed into
word-units. The underlying rhythm of the music will be broken up and transposed, in fragments, to the poem.’

‘In Winnipeg’, I replied, ’I once saw a church moved bodily on rollers along the streets to a new churchyard. Couldn’t you use the same technique? So much
simpler.’

Another young man in corduroys grabbed me by the arm and explained his Great Idea. I gathered he was translating the poems of Rilke into colour and from colour into music. It would be
the opus of the century.

I gave him the line about the church in Winnipeg and he looked at me uneasily to see if I was drunk.

Then I met a woman who stood out among the rest for she had success in every line of her plump, upholstered figure. Among that collection of near-misses she was like a swan among house-sparrows.
She had just invented something new in men’s dress; a sock suspender which would revolutionize the trade, and she could look forward to a comfortable fortune. She stood there ignored and
unsung, looking pathetic, as if she had set out for the vicarage garden-party but there had been some ghastly mistake. I fetched her a dry Martini and offered her manly consolation.

‘It’s Alexis I’m looking for’, she said in a little tearful voice.

‘Why?’ I inquired callously. ‘He’s got nothing. He only wants to steal your patent.’

She looked quite shocked so I asked her about her invention and she grew more cheerful and explained it to me in detail, doing little drawings on the back of a visiting-card. I told her about
the musician and poet I had met before her.

‘You three should get together’, I went on, ‘with your talents and their sales-talk you could produce something which might shatter society. Animated musical suspension
harnessed to clothe man’s nether portions.’

It was a bad joke and I began to wonder if perhaps I was a little tight after all. I had only drunk about five whiskies but the atmosphere was as close as a four-ale bar on share-out night. So I
went in search of Cassirus to make my excuses, and found him half-concealed in a corner, cracking his fingers. I liked Cassirus. He was so ungraceful with his unwieldy but passionate body, and
beneath dark, oiled hair which clung to his skull like a crimped shell, his eyes were honest. Which was surprising if you considered everything.

‘I’ve enjoyed it immensely, Michael’, I said.

‘It has been interesting.’

‘Hasn’t it?’

‘Quite a success.’

He made one or two polished references about his intimate friends—meaning me—being the backbone of these little gatherings and I did my best to look gratified.

‘I saw you talking to David Bascombe earlier on’, he added.

‘Yes. Julius introduced me.’

‘Something tells me that there are prospects for you in that line.’

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.

‘He was speaking to me a minute ago. Seemed very interested in you and wanted to know exactly how you earned a living. When I replied that you were not exactly fussy about money so long as
it came in liberal quantities, he looked thoughtful.’

‘You malign me,’ I protested, ‘I have my business ethics.’

Cassirus smiled; a Latin smile showing his perfect teeth.

‘Thought you were a private detective.’

‘They call us inquiry agents now. It sounds more commercial and stiff-collared, but the fees are still the same.’

‘Knowing as much as I do about the Bascombe family,’ he went on, ‘I feel that there is something hatching and you can be in on it if you play your cards right.’

‘Not another clutch of serpent’s eggs to brood over?’

‘What if it is?’ he said and smiled once more. ‘The yolks are probably of eighteen-carat gold.’

I knew better than to sound him for details at that time. Cassirus never threw his information about. He had to earn a living. Usually his secrets commanded a price and I wasn’t even in
the game yet. But when he said he knew something about the Bascombe family I never for a moment doubted him.

So I made my departure and walked back to my flat by way of Chelsea Embankment. It was barely dark and the river flowed sluggishly like a black snake, glistening under the uneven night.
Buildings were losing shape, merging together in dark blue masses, and the street lights glittered half-heartedly like a row of amethysts. The air was very clear with the softness of June and bore
the incessant hum of traffic lightly, while somewhere in the far distance, downstream, a ship’s siren sounded twice and was silent.

The night porter at the block of flats looked up from his evening paper to give me a message. Mr. David Bascombe had telephoned and would I care to lunch with him tomorrow at the Courtnam Club.
No answer was necessary if I could make it.

I went upstairs and made myself coffee and a ham sandwich. Then I undressed, switched off the light and opened the windows. It was darker now and the lights across the river glittered and were
reflected brightly in the water. The night was full of a quiet satisfaction, intangible but real.

David Bascombe had telephoned. The wheel was beginning to turn now which would drive the invisible machine. Slowly at first but inexorably; tying up the lives of people, changing orbits and
altering tracks till paths intercrossed, parted, then intercrossed again. Every casual word might shape distant events, each inconsidered action could be invested with significance. The machine, I
was certain, had been started. I climbed into bed and slept dreamlessly.

The Courtnam Club was just the type of place I would have expected David Bascombe to patronize. It was small without being insignificant, exclusive
without being old-fashioned, and expensive without being ostentatious. Only well-dressed men lunched in its dining-room but not all of them wore Guards ties. The furniture was proof of tolerant
concessions to the twentieth century, there was a television set in the lounge, and no living corpses in the reading-room.

A man with sandy hair sat behind a desk in the foyer. I gave him my name.

‘Mr. Bascombe is expecting you, Captain Bryant’, he said politely. ‘He is in the American Bar.’

I thanked him, checked my hat, and followed a uniformed page into the bar, wondering where Bascombe had got hold of the ‘captain’. It was true that in the war I had got as far as
wearing three pips on my shoulder, but I neglected to put it on my card. Temporary ranks were not hard to come by. They never meant a thing. Nor did I suppose they would ever carry any weight
socially. There was the possibility that Bascombe had discovered it and thought it would sound more impressive to the man behind the desk, but I was prepared to credit him with more intelligence.
More probably it was meant as a hint; an indication that he had gone to the trouble of checking on my past and of having me ‘screened’.

He met me with a trace of a smile, so quick as to be almost still-born; a smile like a curtain being lifted over a hidden passage to his mind; lifted for a moment and then quickly dropped. And
he spoke abruptly. They were mannerisms I got to know very well later. We had two or three drinks and an excellent lunch, and all the time I was doing my best to rescue the conversation from death
by suffocation, for he seemed preoccupied and listened to me distantly and without interest. I noticed he had the eyes of an old man. They carried that vacant, far-seeing expression, often mistaken
for wisdom, less often for stupidity, which is a characteristic of those who, by long practice, have learnt to keep their minds completely blank.

I had thought he would come straight to the point and explain why he had invited me to lunch, but throughout the meal he said nothing. It was frustrating and made me feel like a man watching a
Russian play where all the elements of drama are carefully presented but nothing ever happens. I began to think that my hunch had been just another hunch; that he had really only invited me to
lunch. But after we had finished eating and were leaving the dining-room he spoke.

‘We’ll have coffee brought in to the library upstairs,’ he said, ‘I wish to speak to you on a private matter and there we won’t be disturbed.’

He was right about the library. It was deserted and from the musty smell it was the sort of room in which a murderer would choose to leave his victim’s body if he wanted a couple of weeks
to get away. There was nothing in the room to attract anyone there. An old edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, bound volumes of Punch going back goodness knows how long,
out-of-date copies of Debrett and Whitaker, and the collected works of Victorian authors long dead and forgotten. A library of disuse and uncut pages. We drew up the only two comfortable chairs in
front of the empty, dejected fireplace and placed a card-table between them. A waiter brought coffee and liqueurs on a tray and then went away leaving us alone.

As he poured out David suddenly spoke: ‘You are a private investigator I believe?’

‘That’s a nice way of putting it. I have been called other names.’

He smiled, faintly. ‘I asked you to lunch to-day because I want a man to carry out some inquiries for me.’

‘It’s not blackmail by any chance.’

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘It usually is—or divorce work.’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘it isn’t either of those. I want you to investigate my father’s death.’

That surprised me but I tried not to show it. ‘I thought he committed suicide.’

‘That was the coroner’s verdict.’

‘And you don’t agree with it?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t.’

So this was it; the first signpost on the unmapped road that I would follow blindly like a caterpillar in long grass. I drained my cup of coffee before replying.

‘I read the newspaper reports of the inquest’, I said. ‘On the evidence which was presented it was the only possible verdict.’

‘Then the evidence was misleading’, he replied stubbornly. ‘If you had known my father you would understand me when I say that he was not the sort of man who would kill
himself. Besides he had no reason to.’

‘Wasn’t there something about insomnia?’

‘Insomnia!’ He exclaimed with contempt. ‘Everyone who committs suicide suffers from insomnia if we are to believe the newspapers. My father may have slept badly from time to
time, but that insomnia story is just an exaggeration.’

‘Don’t think me cynical but whenever someone shoots himself his relatives won’t believe it. “He just wasn’t the type to do it”, they say.’

‘Does that mean you won’t accept the job?’

‘Not at all,’ I replied, ‘I just don’t believe in selling something I haven’t got. Don’t imagine that I can prowl about your father’s bedroom, scrape
the carpet, measure the bed and then point an accusing finger at the butler. I can’t.’

He smiled; not the sort of smile I care for; it was thin-lipped, disdainful and clever. It did absolutely nothing for my ego.

‘I think you underestimate my intelligence’, he said. ‘I’m not acting on a sentimental whim. If you were a shrewder judge of character you would realize that I must have
a very good reason for wishing this matter to be investigated. I would not waste your time or my money.’

‘If you have any other reasons for thinking your father’s death should be investigated, why not pass them on?’

‘Because I’m paying you to find out.’

‘Oh, it’s to be a handicap race’, I said.

‘Once again I have my motives. It’s a question of bias. Obviously I am prejudiced, but I want you to come into the affair with an open mind. I have my suspicions but they are only
suspicions so I’ll keep them to myself.’

‘That’s a point’, I agreed.

‘I’m glad you appreciate it. Now there only remains the question of payment. What is your usual fee?’

I had to do some quick calculating for I don’t work regularly enough to have a scale of fees. I said: ‘A retainer of twenty pounds, a fiver a day plus expenses, and a bonus of fifty
if I get results.’

‘I’ll make it five hundred’, he said, ‘regardless of results or the time you spend on the case. If you feel you are making no progress you can withdraw whenever you
wish.’

‘Curiously enough you tempt me’, I said. And then added: ‘Did you tell the police that you were not satisfied with the verdict at the inquest.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m glad you asked that, because it leads me to my final instructions. If I persuaded the police to re-open their investigations it would only cause a great deal of unwelcome
publicity. We live in the country as you know and in the country every unsavoury incident is magnified by local gossip. My mother has suffered enough already in that respect and I wish to spare her
any more embarrassment. So you must carry on your investigations secretly. My plan is that you should come down and stay with us for as long as you consider necessary. I shall introduce you to my
family as a personal friend of mine, someone I met during the war perhaps, so you will be accepted without comment.’

I thought about the idea for a while. It didn’t strike me very favourably. If I was to pose as a friend how could I go sticking my nose into corners, asking questions and disbelieving the
answers. I told him as much.

‘If it becomes impossible,’ he said, ‘we will have to let the members of my family at least into the secret. But for a start you must do your best under those
conditions.’

There was not much I could reply to that. He was overpaying me and I knew it, so there had to be some snags. Besides business had not been flourishing and I had to eat. So I accepted.

We left the library and went downstairs. The man with the sandy hair smiled affably and the cloakroom attendant inclined his head as he handed me my hat. If I was accepted by the staff of the
Courtnam Club I might even pass muster in the Bascombe family. I made a mental note to get my dinner-jacket cleaned.

On the steps outside Bascombe paused.

‘There is one more thing,’ he said, ‘I am returning home on the day after tomorrow in the morning. Perhaps . . .