A Darker God (38 page)

“Heavens! Go on, William,” said Letty.

“I can’t. There is no more. It ends abruptly. Not even a signature. The folds are not even—it looks as though he pushed it hurriedly into the envelope.”

“The banker’s men were probably rattling at the doorknob,” suggested Montacute. “You’ve seen them—they run on clockwork and wait for no man!” He glanced anxiously at his watch. “Had enough excitement for one day? Prepare yourselves for one more! Miss Letty, pass me that paper knife from the professor’s desk, would you?”

Knife in hand, he turned his attention to the black chest. “Before this gets carted off … you’re forgetting what our lawyer friend told us. The professor was insistent that the new owner should pay some attention to it as well as the contents. And I think I know why.”

“Hey! Stop that!” Letty called. “You’re not going to attack it with a paper knife! I won’t let you!”

“Only way. I’ll be discreet. The lid, I couldn’t help noticing as I cracked my muscles to lift it, is extraordinarily heavy. The surface is painted to look like ebony, but really it wouldn’t deceive an infant. That’s a coat of relatively modern paint, I’d say,
hardly more than camouflage. And if what I’m thinking is right, then it should scrape off very easily. Because I’m also thinking that paint never adheres very successfully to …”

He stretched himself out on the floor and scraped away at a section of the underside of the back of the chest, a spot between the two rear legs, his head at a neck-breaking angle. “… to metal,” he grunted, after a moment’s suspense.

He lifted his head. “To be precise: to gold. It’s gold, man! Solid bloody
gold!”

Chapter 32

T
he Cretan gendarme who manned the front desk in the police lockup checked for a second time the visitor’s credentials. In no hurry, he studied the immaculate figure standing aloof, uncommunicative, glancing in a marked manner at his expensive Swiss wristwatch and tapping his shiny black shoe.

“And does the prisoner wish to see
you
?” the Cretan asked with deliberate lack of deference. He had decided the visitor represented everything he despised. “She has not requested it.”

“Immaterial,” said the visitor. “Get on with it, man!” He passed an envelope over the desk.

The explanatory note, written in Greek, on headed paper, and signed with a flourish, was studied with exaggerated interest. Careful and professional to the bone, the policeman required the visitor to take a seat while he made further enquiries. He ignored the sigh of irritation and avoided the haughty stare that greeted his decision. “Constable!” he called over his shoulder. “Take this note to the commander.”

He turned to the visitor, who had chosen to remain standing. “And now we wait.”

They waited.

Ten minutes later a note came back from Superintendent Theotakis, and the bearer was Philippos.

We have to allow this. I’m sending you an English-speaking officer. It is a condition of the meeting that the sergeant sits in on it
.

With all precautions taken and the female wardress standing by, the visitor and Philippos were escorted to the cells.

Thetis looked up eagerly from her book when they appeared. “Oh, I say! This is as bad as the London omnibuses! No visitors for hours and then four turn up at once! Are you an execution squad? A bridge party? I don’t wish to be unwelcoming, but—this is a very small cell, you know. There’s only space for two at a time with me in here … Let’s see … I’d say the sergeant is an essential element—Come in, won’t you, Philippos? Good to see you again! Tell me—how’s little Ioannis?”

Philippos grinned, happy to play her game. “He’s much better, miss. The honey and lemon worked a treat.”

“Relieved to hear that! It can’t have been much fun … Now, Kyria Papadopoulos can occupy her usual chair in the corridor, which leaves standing room only, I’m afraid, for the envoy from the British Embassy.”

The constable with the keys fell in with her suggestions, locking her in with the two men and ambling off again down the corridor.

Thetis turned with outstretched hand and a mischievous smile to the visitor. “My husband! Agamemnon!
‘I hail my lord, safe watchdog of the fold,’”
she added, slipping at once into their edgy onstage relationship. “Sorry I can’t offer you a red carpet on which to place your polished Oxfords and—nowhere really to sit. You’ll just have to plonk yourself down on that stool over there. Now … Philippos, do you know Mr. Melton? No? Then allow me to present Geoffrey Melton from the Embassy.

Diplomat of some sort, he tells me, and—actor. Yes—actor of some distinction. Mr. Melton finds himself in the enviable position of playing both my husband and my lover. Geoffrey, this is Sergeant Georgios. He speaks excellent English, so watch out! If you try to bully me, I shall have a witness. Now, gentlemen, what may I offer you?” She glanced around the austere cell. “Boiled sweet?”

Melton sighed and muttered Agamemnon’s line:
“‘There speaks my wife and the speech—like my absence—far too long!’”

Suppressing a bark of laughter, Philippos selected a cherry flavour from the bag she held out and, murmuring his thanks, went to perch on the end of the narrow bed. Melton rejected the sweet but made the misjudgement of automatically taking up her offer of a seat on the small three-legged stool she politely pulled forward for him. He folded himself onto it like a piece of collapsible campaign furniture and found he was unable to work out what to do with his long legs. His knees were level with his ears. He separated his legs and, obviously judging that by this masculine pose he risked presenting an offensive spectacle, he at once brought his thighs together and slid them to one side. Not happy with this effeminate side-saddle presentation either, he began to wriggle. His eye level was a good three feet lower than that of the prisoner who chose to stand, with regal composure, looking down at him.

“And now, why don’t you tell us why you’ve come?” Thetis said with the annoying briskness of a nanny. “And
do
stop squirming, Geoffrey, dear!”

Her tone triggered a violent reaction. With a shout of rage, he uncoiled himself and rose to his feet. He kicked the stool away from under him, narrowly missing Thetis, who neatly sidestepped. His angry presence filled the small room with such menace, Philippos leapt up, alarmed, gun in hand and trained on Melton. Melton held out a palm to him in a
restraining gesture and began to speak in a voice only just in control. His words were icy, his sentences so short as to verge on rudeness. “Sympathies for your predicament … efforts being made at the highest level … negotiations with the Greek government …”

Thetis calmly tilted her head up and looked him in the eye. “Geoffrey, if your next sentence doesn’t include the words ‘at liberty,’ I don’t want to hear it and shall ask the sergeant to escort you off the premises.”

He gave her a tight smile. “Then I’ll quickly say: ‘at large.’” He clicked his heels and sketched a sarcastic bow. “And very soon. The papers are being prepared as we speak. You will be released, probably on bail, pending further enquiries, and will be expected to keep to a designated address and timetable. Part of your timetable—and this is important—will involve the further preparation for and appearance in the first night of the play
Agamemnon
in the role you contracted to assume and in the associated ceremonies that have been planned for the hour or so afterwards. Everything is to go ahead exactly as discussed.” He stared at her for a moment. “Don’t get into any more trouble or attract the attention of the forces of law and order in any way. The queen’s presence is a vital element, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.”

“No indeed, Geoffrey. But the king it is who dies, remember. The queen lives on for a while, to die upon another stage.”

“There’s no consolation for you in delay.”

“No, I agree.” And she added in her theatre voice: “
‘There’s no escape, my friend, not by delaying.’
Cassandra, poor dear, knew that.”

“‘But the last moment should be savoured,’”
he responded with the next line of the play.

“‘My time has come. There’s nothing to gain by flight.’”

“‘You have a brave soul and a gallant heart,’”
he concluded,
and nodded to Philippos, indicating that the interview was over. He turned to the door and then paused dramatically. “But the discipline of a headless chicken!” he spat.

Puzzled and beginning to lose the thread of the dialogue, the sergeant, in relief, shouted through the bars for the key.

Chapter 33

T
hey watched from the library window as the banker’s men struggled out carrying the chest, wrapped up securely once, again in its concealing old rug, the ends stuck down with parcel tape, and manoeuvred it into the back of the van they had parked in front of the house.

Letty expressed all their thoughts: “Do you think it’s perfectly safe? It must be worth a king’s ransom.”

“Andrew considered it safe. Yes, I think it’s better off in a strong room in a basement somewhere under Syntagma Square. Not so much fun as on display here, but—safe. Not so the owner, though, I’m afraid. Perhaps we should stuff
you
away in a basement under Syntagma for the foreseeable, Miss Laetitia?”

“You think this Gunay fellow has returned after all these years … can it be six?… in search of what he considers still to be his? That he’s cutting a deadly swath through the Merriman family and its heirs?”

“It’s hard to see how he might think he could retrieve anything,” said Gunning. “Andrew has everything signed, sealed, recorded, and tied up in red ribbons. Impossible for Gunay to
get his hands on it again in the political and legal circumstances. He must know that.”

“They’re off.” Montacute turned from the window with a sigh of relief. “Oh, yes. I’m sure he would know that. Which would make his behaviour doubly puzzling. But there, in the back of that lorry, goes a very compelling motive for murder. And I’m thinking there are those closer to us than Gunay, whoever and wherever he is, who might have got wind of Andrew’s intriguing possession and aim to draw some benefit from it.”

“Don’t be silly!” Letty protested. “If that’s so and you’re looking for a suspect, you need look no further than me!
I’m
the one who’s inherited all that. No one else benefits.”

“But no one, including yourself, was aware of that—beyond the lawyer, of course, and if my judgement of that tight-mouthed young man is right, he wouldn’t vouchsafe the time of day to a watchmaker. On the other hand …” Montacute speculated, “if the said young man were to suddenly discover he’s in love with Letty, cosy up, and seek her hand in marriage, I might admit to a suspicion. In fact
any
man fancying his chances with Miss Talbot and having prior knowledge of Merriman’s affairs must find himself topping my list of suspects,” he said, with a mild smile for Gunning.

“You forget, Montacute, that as far as the world was concerned, Andrew’s estate went to his widow and, inevitably, after her death, to the nominees of
her
will. Go and arrest Maud’s six cousins!”

“I’ve got
one
of them under lock and key … just give me time!”

Letty was saved from hearing more skirmishing by the shrilling of the telephone.

Montacute answered. “Markos! Oh, really?… I hope you sent … Philippos … good. Put him on, will you?

“No, no! Stay!” he told them, grinning, as they prepared to withdraw. “You’ll want to hear this! Miss Templeton has had a visitor. She spent a compassionate five minutes with Geoffrey Melton.

“Ah, Sergeant! Tell me all that passed …” He began to frown. “You’re sure that’s all? Just quoting lines from the play at each other? Well, I suppose it saves you having to think up conversation … And he told her to stay out of trouble with the law … she was needed onstage next week. And her release was imminent. Just being the Embassy’s mouthpiece, then. No more? How did they interact? He kicked a stool at her? Well, one can’t be surprised. Is she all right?… He called her what? A fowl without a head, did you say? Are you sure of that? Give it to me in the English he used … Ah, ‘as undisciplined as a headless chicken.’… Oh, it’s just a saying …”