A Fête Worse Than Death (6 page)

Isabelle rested her chin on her hand. ‘Poor old Tucker. He was loyal, but I've never known such a dog for digging. He would keep on bringing dead rats into the house as well, and I hated finding them in my bedroom. If you wanted to dig something up, Jack, so to speak, I wish you would find my emerald pendant. You know, the one you gave me when I was twenty-one. I haven't seen it for ages and I wanted to wear it for the Red Cross ball.'

‘Not again,' groaned her brother. ‘If you'd look for it instead of grumbling all the time we'd all be a lot happier. You wouldn't have lost it in the first place if you weren't so scatty.'

‘I'm not scatty!' said Isabelle indignantly. ‘Not with things which really matter. And I wanted my pendant because everyone else'll be wearing pearls. Everyone does now and . . .'

‘You want to be different,' finished Haldean with a grin.

‘Well, I do. It's the ball next week and if I can't find my pendant then I can't wear my green georgette and I know Ethel Tibberton will be wearing blue, so that's ruled out, which only leaves the cream with burgundy trim and I've
got
to wear pearls with the cream because nothing else goes and Diana Hesketh's got a long string of pearls, about twice as long as anyone else's, and she's dying to crow about them.'

‘Gosh,' said Haldean. ‘Putting on a white tie seems easy by comparison.'

‘You don't know the half of it.'

Gregory Rivers stretched out luxuriously. ‘And all in the name of fun.'

‘Well, it's in the name of charity, actually, dear,' said his mother. ‘I'm extremely grateful to Mrs Verrity for hosting it. She goes to a great deal of trouble and expense and last year we raised a considerable sum of money, which, of course, is the main object. However, there isn't any reason why we shouldn't entertain ourselves at the same time.'

‘Jack doesn't need to be entertained. He's got a murder to keep him happy. It's your idea of fun, isn't it, old man?'

‘No it isn't,' said Haldean. ‘You make me sound positively morbid. I'm motivated by nothing more than feelings of civic duty.'

‘Come off it!'

‘No, really,' said Haldean with a lazy grin. ‘It's fascinating, but I don't know that I'd call it fun.' He met Rivers' raised eyebrow. ‘All right, guv, I'll come clean. There is an element of that about it but . . .' He locked his fingers together and stared at them. ‘I wish I'd liked Boscombe. I'm blowed if I can't feel a certain sympathy with the murderer. Is anyone the worse for Boscombe being ex of this life? Is there a grieving relict and a row of orphaned children? I doubt it. I know he's dead and I sincerely hope he does rest in peace and all of that, but he was an unpleasant little runt all the same.'

‘Jack!' said Lady Rivers, shocked. ‘You can't condone murder simply because you don't care for the victim. Why, if people were murdered for being unpleasant, half the County would be dead tomorrow.'

Haldean caught Isabelle's eye and laughed. ‘That's an appalling slur upon your neighbours.'

‘You know exactly what I mean,' said his aunt severely. ‘And you have to get on with people in the country otherwise life is simply impossible.'

‘Even if Diana Whosit has better pearls than yours, Belle,' murmured Haldean. ‘Unforgivable. Talking about neighbours, what d'you think of Colonel Whitfield? I'd not really met him properly before today and . . .'

‘Whitfield?' said Sir Philip, coming into the room with Lawrence behind him. ‘We were just talking about him, weren't we, Lawrence? Can I get you a drink, by the way?'

‘I know Marguerite's interested in the Colonel,' said Lady Rivers, ‘which is why I wrote to you, of course, Mr Lawrence, but until he met Marguerite I would have said that it was Mrs Verrity who had caught his eye.'

‘He's done precious little about it if she has,' said Sir Philip, pouring a glass of whisky for Lawrence. ‘Say when. Help yourself to soda. Mind you,' he added warmly, ‘I wouldn't blame him if he
was
keen on Mrs Verrity, even if she is a few years older than him. She must be the most attractive woman in the district. She's got the most marvellous auburn hair. I can't think how she does it at her age.'

‘You might care to notice, Philip,' said Lady Rivers acidly, ‘that Anne-Marie Verrity is only slightly younger than me and that even I haven't succeeded in becoming completely grey.'

‘Oh . . . er, no, of course not, my dear,' said Sir Philip, regarding the pit which he had dug. ‘Completely grey, indeed! What an idea! Besides, it suits you. Very . . . becoming. Not that it would matter if you were, of course. Grey, that is. All over.'

‘Who is Mrs Verrity, anyway?' asked Haldean, throwing his uncle a lifeline. ‘I've heard her mentioned, of course, but I only met her this afternoon. She seemed a very capable sort of person. Is she English? I thought I heard the trace of an accent.'

‘She's French,' said his uncle gratefully, ‘but she's lived in England for years.' He added soda water to his whisky and rocked the glass thoughtfully. ‘She married Michael Verrity, whose family owned Thackenhurst. You remember him, Alice? He was in the diplomatic corps and we ran into them in Cairo before the war. They got posted to Vienna for a time and I gather she made quite a stir in society there. Verrity was well on the way to making a name for himself when he fell ill and got sent home. He must have died about 1914 or was it '15? Anyway, Mrs Verrity developed a taste for nursing and after his death set up a hospital near Auchonvillers. Ran it jolly well, too. As you say, she's a capable woman.'

‘You still find her slightly exotic though, don't you, Mother?' asked Isabelle.

‘Well, I do, dear. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the way she dresses. She wears country clothes, admittedly, and nothing out of place, but such
style
! She looks more like someone from a magazine rather than a real person. The house is like that, too. Thackenhurst was always very pleasant but in a lived-in sort of way, but after the war I believe Mrs Verrity had someone down from London to design the rooms for her and it shows. It's hard to realize it's actually someone's home. Of course she often has visitors and I suppose as she is French and lived in Vienna when it really
was
Vienna, she feels she has to make a show.' She stood up and yawned delicately. ‘Oh dear. I think if you'll excuse me I really must go upstairs. It's been a long day. The fête was enough and then with this tragedy on top of it . . . I feel so sorry for Mrs Griffin. I must call in on her tomorrow. She only stepped in at the last minute because I asked her to and I can't help but feel slightly responsible. Goodnight, everyone.' She left the room.

Haldean looked at Rivers. ‘Fancy a last pipe on the terrace?'

‘Don't mind if I do.'

Together they went outside and strolled the length of the house, smoking in companionable silence. The moon had risen and was riding low in the sky, drenching the lawns in silver light. A breeze ruffled the top of the grass, sending little dancing shadows flickering across the lawns. Moonlight was odd, Haldean thought. It was as if the shadows were real and the things they were shadows of were themselves unsubstantial tricks of the light. A bit like Boscombe. The real man, the living man with a body, organs, a brain and, he presumed, a soul, was gone, an unsubstantial memory. But his death – an event of minute importance compared to his life – was the part that cast the shadow. And as for him? He had to chase that shadow, seeing whom it would darken. Better than chasing rainbows, he thought, with a touch of humour, and put another match to his pipe.

‘I've been thinking,' said Rivers eventually. ‘About Boscombe, I mean. Damn funny business altogether. What was he doing at the fair in the first place, Jack? And why did he go in that tent to be killed?'

Haldean turned the question over. ‘He must have come to the fair to meet someone,' he said eventually. ‘I'm assuming that was Colonel Whitfield.'

‘You could be right, Jack, but I think he saw someone else as well. Someone he knew, I mean. Don't you remember? He was rattling on about his book in the beer tent, and I was wishing he was very much elsewhere, when he looked up and sort of jumped. We were sitting by the tent flap, if you remember, and I thought he'd seen someone in the crowd. Then Colonel Whitfield came in and Boscombe latched on to him.'

‘And that somebody else might be the murderer? You could have something there. In which case it's a chance meeting . . .' Haldean shook himself. ‘What else did you ask? Why did he go in the tent to be killed? That's a good question, Greg, and pretty rum, when you come to think of it. I mean, once he's in the tent he's out of sight. No one could know he was in there apart from those of us who saw him go in. And that's you, me, Mrs Griffin and Colonel Whitfield.'

‘And anyone else who happened to be watching.'

‘Was anyone else watching?'

Rivers shrugged. ‘Blessed if I know. We weren't keeping it a secret, were we? And although it all seemed innocent enough at the time, if someone wanted to murder the chap, then it doesn't seem very far-fetched to say that same someone would be keeping a fairly close eye on where he had got to.'

Haldean sucked his pipe regretfully. ‘No, damn it, you're right. I'll tell you something that's occurred to me, though. It can't have been a planned murder. Someone just saw their chance and took it on the spur of the moment. Hang on a mo. They'd have to have a gun on them, and that's odd, too. You don't go armed to a village fête unless you're expecting trouble.'

‘And that knocks your idea of it being an impulsive murder on the head.'

Haldean half-laughed. ‘If I go on worrying at it I'll end up thinking he wasn't murdered at all. I'm going to forget it until tomorrow.' He stretched his arms out lazily ‘I love staying here. I always sleep like a top.' He glanced at his cousin. ‘Is something bothering you, Greg?'

Rivers leaned over the balustrade. ‘Yes, it is. Murder, you know? I know I pulled your leg earlier about it being fun, but it's not fun, is it? There's someone out there who thinks it's up to them if another person lives or dies. I've got to go back to Town soon and I don't like the thought of leaving you all. You didn't like Boscombe. Lord knows, neither did I, but that's where it stops. But someone else . . . They've killed once and if you start stirring things up they might try again. It's a dangerous game, Jack. I'm not happy about you being mixed up in it.'

Haldean paused. Greg was right. Murder wasn't fun. It was a warm night, but he looked once more at the shadows on the lawn and shivered.

The next morning, lured by brilliant sunshine and what sounded like every sparrow in Sussex cheeping outside his window, Haldean got up at the indecently early hour of seven o'clock and, leaving the house swathed in Sabbath silence, climbed into his car and went to hear early Mass in Lewes, where the words of the offertory went home with unusual force:
Illumina oculos meos, ne unquam obdormiam in morte: nequando dicat inimicus meus: Praevalui adversus eum. Enlighten my eyes, that I may never sleep in death; lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him
. Enlighten my eyes: there were worse prayers for an investigator and Boscombe had certainly had an enemy who had prevailed.

At the same time Superintendent Edward Ashley, who was also thinking of Boscombe but on a more earthly plane, was carrying a cup of tea up the stairs to his wife. Giving her a peck on the cheek, he explained that no, he really couldn't say when he'd be home, and he'd have his dinner heated up when he got back.

By the time Haldean had spiritually fortified himself, Ashley was sitting on a dilatory bus wheezing its way to the Talbot Arms, Breedenbrook, where Boscombe's room had been kept locked until he could look at it in far greater leisure than he could spare on the previous day.

Arriving back at the house, Haldean shed his suit and, arrayed in elderly, unfashionable but comfortable flannels and an open-necked shirt, spent an agreeable half-hour in, variously, ejecting the kitchen cat from his bed, relieving the housemaid of a cup of tea and leaning over his windowsill, cigarette in hand, whilst the perfect title and rudiments of plot for his next story formed themselves in his mind.

Descending to the morning room, he armed himself with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon from the sideboard just as Ashley, in the company of Mrs Dorothy Plaxy, landlady, was ascending the old, oak and lethally polished staircase of the Talbot Arms. She was assuring him at great length that everything had been left just as he had told them to, and re-emphasizing that they'd never had any trouble in their house. No, not even after-hours drinking, which could be checked with Constable Hawley. As she panted on to the landing she was giving forcible and frequent expression to the view that it didn't seem right to her, not anyhow, that any guest of theirs should go and get himself murdered.

As Mrs Plaxy opened the door, Haldean was raising his coffee cup to his lips, but what Ashley saw in that room was not only the cause of Mrs Plaxy's violent hysterics but also the reason why the telephone bell rang in the hall of Hesperus Manor.

Haldean's breakfast (which he was looking forward to) remained half-finished on its plate.

Albert Plaxy, a big, awkward man, still wearing the old clothes in which he cleaned out the beer pipes every Sunday morning, took the cup of tea and put it with clumsy sympathy into his wife's hands. ‘Here you are, Mother. Drink this and you'll feel better.' He turned to Superintendent Ashley. ‘I don't know what to say. We've never had nothing like this happen before. It's always been such a quiet house.' He glanced at the little maid who had brought the tea. She, round-eyed with excitement, was still standing beside him. ‘What do you want, Betty?'