A Darker God (45 page)

They followed her down the staircase to the black-and-white-tiled hallway and looked about them at the unremarkable
space. A gilt French side table held a bowl for visiting cards and a vase with a spray of flowers. A long-case clock ticked solemnly in a corner. As they stood in silent puzzlement, the clock whirred and clicked, cleared its ancient throat, and began to chime nine.

Letty waited for it to finish before pointing to the one other piece of furniture the hall contained. Every hallway had one, seen on every entry but unremarked by anyone: an umbrella stand. This was a capacious cylinder of beaten bronze and contained two carefully rolled umbrellas—one man’s large black one and a lady’s shorter green one. The heads of three walking canes projected: one ivory, one silver, and one carved ebony.

“I won’t touch it. I leave it to you, Percy,” Letty said.

“The umbrella stand?” he said. “But we’ve turned it out. It’s been checked.”

He advanced on it, lifted it, and turned it on its side, tipping the contents onto the floor.

“Not as thoroughly as young Demetrios, apparently. He was always looking for jobs to do. Keeping the hallway neat was one of his tasks. The day after Andrew and Maud died, he decided the umbrellas looked untidy. They’d been carelessly rolled. He unfastened them and rerolled them to his satisfaction. As you see them now. Having time on his hands, and no Maud any longer to catch him idling and shout at him, he paused to play with the walking canes. Pretty handles, you notice. The ivory-topped cane—exotic carving of an Indian goddess, I think—was Andrew’s father’s old cane. He never used it.”

“Rather fascinating object for a young man of twelve,” Montacute remarked.

“Or any age!” said Gunning, picking it up and examining it.

“The silver one was left behind by a guest at their last
soirée. The ebony-headed cane belonged to Maud,” Thetis explained. “Very
Art Déco
. Was she ever pleased with it! Used it every time she left the house. She was using it on the night Andrew died.”

“And
that’s
the one that caught Demetrios’s attention,” Letty said. “Will you take a closer look at it, Percy?”

With a face where dread struggled with eagerness, Montacute picked it up. “Heavy,” he commented. He ran a forefinger over the elegantly carved hand grip. He turned it in his hands and inspected the silver ferrule at the end. “Ah!” His fingers slipped, questing, along the length of the cane and caressed the carving again. He twisted the handle and grunted in frustration. “How in heaven’s name did the lad ever find the place? Good God! There it is! Stand back! Don’t crowd me!”

With a slicing swish, he drew a slim length of metal from the cane. Metal whose gleam was dulled by a dark brown stain.

“Very short blade for a sword cane,” he commented. “But deadly. The best-quality Toledo steel, five inches long, bayonet shape with a blood channel along its length. And it hasn’t been cleaned.”

Thetis stared at it, turning pale. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she whispered. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

    They retreated back up to the drawing room, Montacute taking the cane with him.

“Andrew liked to think the women in his life were protected,” Letty said. “Maud hadn’t the wits to use a gun, so he must have found this disgusting implement for her. I’ve heard of sword sticks … my French grandfather was reputed never to leave the house without one. But that was Paris in the days of the apaches. Whatever was Maud doing using one?”

It was Thetis who answered her question: “Those tourists who were kidnapped and murdered. Maud was quite spooked
by that. It’s when she started to carry that thing about with her. She told everyone she had arthritis. Perhaps she did. How would I know? I never really listened! Percy, that’s Andrew’s blood on that blade, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Tests will reveal, and all that … but yes, I think we can assume the worst. I say, Miss Laetitia, do you think you could cast your mind back over the evening in question … I know you’ve already given a clear statement but in the light of this evidence …?”

“Yes, of course. We weren’t concentrating on Maud particularly, were we?” Letty frowned, remembering. “She got to the theatre early and went, shall we say, to confront Andrew in his lair backstage. To beat him about the head with her discovery that he was not only having an affair with her cousin but was contemplating divorce in order to marry her? She was always creeping about. She could have overheard something? Perhaps Andrew himself, pushed beyond endurance, told her he wanted a divorce? She would never have tolerated that. He poured out a glass of water for her. She was wearing gloves, so … no prints. They quarrelled. He was subservient to her usually, I think because he pitied her, but he had a razor tongue and occasionally could strike with it. I’ve heard him do that. Perhaps he said something that tipped her over the edge. Years and years of suffering his infidelities and now to crown it all—the shame of divorce. I’m sure that would have been the trigger.”

Montacute groaned. “Something snapped! How often I’ve heard that! The sword stick clicked and she stabbed him. Slim blade, you see. One lucky thrust would do it. Straight in and out. A single stroke powered by insane rage. She was a tall woman, the wound’s in the right place. And then, the next stage is normally—panic sets in. And in the rush of energy that comes to people in extremis, she hauled him about and put him in the bathtub. Giving her time to think and plan.”

“And then she tapped her way across the orchestra and sat down by my side, ready for the rehearsal,” said Letty.

“Leaving traces of blood as she went,” said Montacute.

“And then she gloated!” Thetis snapped. “All that bereaved-widow stuff she put on for us! The tapping of the tub and the ‘Joke’s over, Andrew!’ nonsense. The clutching of the bosom and the ‘Take me home now, William’! Devil! I wish I
had
pushed her out of the window! She sat there, smirking in her black gown and her pearls, provoking me. Taunting. She was spilling over with hatred. Quite mad. I’m only surprised she didn’t attempt to kill me as well.”

“Thetis,” said Letty thoughtfully. “Can we be quite sure she didn’t try?”

    A tap on the door announced that Dr. Peebles was waiting below.

When he was shown up, the doctor introduced himself to everyone and, with a meaningful glance at his wristwatch, agreed that he had arrived earlier than anticipated. One patient had made a recovery in the night and he was ahead of time. A brisk Scotsman, he was not prepared to be at the beck and call of the English policeman, apparently. Now, could he possibly be of any assistance at all to the Athens police? he asked waspishly … They only had to ask …

Montacute rode the implied criticism good-naturedly and asked him to reveal what had passed between him and his patient on the night of her husband’s murder. He stressed that absolute openness was vital, as the life and liberty of another depended on his statement.

Mollified, the doctor launched into his recital. “A word first about Lady Merriman’s general condition. In a word: poor. She was a concern to me. She had a few peripheral and
nonthreatening ailments … age, don’t you know … we all have our twinges and this climate is sometimes a bit harsh on an English constitution, but she had a quite serious heart condition. There were signs some months ago of the way things were going. I had warned her to take things easy, but—you know what she was like—never still. Indefatigable. I think also she secretly considered herself invulnerable. I was summoned to attend her at about eight on the night she died. She had just returned from the theatre, where the discovery of her husband’s murder had been made. She was agitated. Very. Her heart was—a layman might well have said—at bursting point. She had clearly suffered the most enormous stress. I offered her a sedative, which she refused to take. I was angry at the rejection of assistance. I told her the truth, which perhaps a doctor ought rarely to do …” He hesitated.

“We know how provoking she could be, Doctor,” Thetis murmured, encouraging him.

“And the truth was …?” Montacute prompted.

“That she had only days to live. Perhaps hours, if she refused to cooperate with her medical advisor.” Peebles drew himself up to his full height and spoke in a tone of defiance. “I advised instant admittance to hospital. I offered to drive her there. When this was rejected, I offered to stay on. My patient rejected my help and dismissed me. This is all duly noted in my record of events. What you must know is that her heart was strained beyond repair and about to give out at any moment.”

The affair still rankled with the doctor, Letty judged, and she was relieved to hear Montacute speak with understanding: “Doctor, that is all very clear. And your valuable information is vital to our enquiry. Would you be so good as to send in a written version of what you have just told us? And, in the matter of conscience: We accept that you did all you could. When the
full truth comes out, I think you will see that, in the circumstances, Lady Merriman was the author of her own misfortune … and that of others.”

Letty felt guiltily that they had not done enough to mend fences and, as he prepared to leave, said the first thing that came into her mind: “Doctor, I don’t know if Maud invited you to the first night of the play she was working on? I know she meant to. We’d be very pleased to see you there if you could come. And stay on for the ceremony afterwards, in her memory and Andrew’s?”

Surprisingly, he smiled and agreed that as he was free that evening … yes … he’d be delighted.

When the doctor left they sat in silence, stunned by the unpalatable truth they were facing.

Montacute spoke first. “We should have listened to Aeschylus. He was giving us the clear answer all along. It was the spurned, resentful wife who wielded the blade. Maud was the real-life Clytemnestra. We ought never to have suspected the concubine. She was merely playing the part.”

“I beg your pardon!” Thetis said sharply. “Do you mean
me?
Percy! If I thought for one moment that you seriously considered I was capable of murder … Well, I’m not quite sure what I’d do, because I’m not the vindictive type, as I hope you have now grasped.”

Letty hurried to say: “You were very nearly her victim too, Thetis. She
did
try to kill you. In an indirect and devious way. She finished off Andrew and by her exertions practically finished herself off as well. The doctor told her she was dying and so she decided in her evil, bent way to use her own death against you. She refused treatment. She intended to control her own end. I think she tried to needle you into killing her, but as you merely screamed at her in rage and left, she did the next best thing. She took hold of your sword and held it in her hand when she leapt from the balcony. Unaided by anyone. If
she died at once, the police would find the sword and ask questions. As you did, Montacute. But, even better for her, she survived long enough to spit her poisonous denunciation into your ear. She was dying
and
taking Thetis down with her.”

“Anything to cause a little pain,” whispered Thetis, head drooping. “I’m ashamed to have any blood in common with her.”

To Letty’s surprise, Montacute turned to Thetis and put an arm around her shoulders. He bent his head and whispered into her ear. She snuggled her head closer.

Gunning caught Letty’s eye and sprang to his feet. “Good Lord, Letty! No one thought to order tea.”

“And it’s Monday morning. Maria’s out shopping. Shall we go down and invade the kitchen, William? I say—will you two excuse us if we dash off and make a cup of tea?”

Chapter 40

T
he funeral service took place on Wednesday. No requests had been made by either occupant of the two gilded coffins that stood surrounded by lilies in front of the altar, so Thetis had agreed with Letty that the smaller of the two cathedrals on Mitrolpoleos Square was the more suitable for the informal gathering of friends, scholars, and British grandees.

Andrew Merriman would have approved. The tiny Byzantine church had very ancient origins. It stood on the site of a temple to the goddess of childbirth, whose authority and patronage had passed seamlessly with the centuries to Saint Mary, just as the stones and marble had been reused to form the fabric of the later church buildings. Sir Andrew would have loved the incense and the resonant priestly voice. He would have been charmed and flattered by the eulogy that Gunning had given with apparent spontaneity.

Letty had no concern for Lady Merriman’s conjectured approval. She had, however, agreed to speak briefly about Maud, since Thetis had refused the duty. She managed to deliver her short address with dignity, and her appreciation of all that Maud had done to foster the arts at home and abroad was sincere.

Two coffins lay side by side but only one would rest in Greek soil.

Thetis had been adamant. “I’m not burying them cheek by jowl. I couldn’t save him in life; the least I can do now he’s dead is rescue him from an eternity of Maud. I’m shipping her back to the family vault in Sussex. It’ll cost the earth but who gives a damn? And it’s what she would have wanted,” she’d added with mock piety.