A Medal For Murder (15 page)

So Lucy’s alibi was Alison, and Alison’s alibi was Lucy. More and more, the ransom note began to look like something cooked up after reading a Girl’s Own mystery story. All they would have needed was a sheet of paper, a pot of glue, scissors and a magazine. Perhaps Lucy and Alison had first made half a dozen decoupage waste bins, and then decided to liven up their lives with a little criminality.

Slowly, I retraced my steps to St Clement’s Road, with more questions than answers. Was I wrong to have kept quiet, and let Mrs Hart go on believing that her daughter had spent the night at the Wolfendales?

The way Lucy and Alison had stuck by each other after the performance made me feel sure they were together somewhere. Perhaps I misjudged them and the note delivered to the captain was some foolish joke, played by an envious ‘friend’ who was not as daring as the two budding thespians. Were Lucy and Alison somewhere having a secretly wonderful time?

After all, they were twenty-one years old. If I had lived either with Captain Wolfendale or Mrs Hart at age
twenty-one, I would have wanted to disappear.

But where had they gone?

A pig in the middle is the person who cannot catch the ball. I could not even see the ball, its size, shape, or who was throwing it.

What would I do if I were the captain? Not difficult. If I were seventy years old and a retired army man, I would call the police. Mrs Hart would then be told. A constable would march down the Harts’ path between the serried ranks of red and white roses. He would be directed by the Harts’ maid to the church hall, there to be devoured by a hundred curious eyes. Some other socially minded lady would need to step in and take charge of twenty-four decoupage waste bins, several pounds of toffee and marshmallows, the small mountain of fairy cakes and the mile and a half of crocheted dressing table runners. Alison’s reputation would be trodden underfoot and kicked under the crepe paper-covered trestle tables.

Let that be on someone else’s head, not mine.

Captain Wolfendale was watching out for me. Before I had time to mount the front steps he had opened the door. His eyes searched my face. I shook my head. A deep sigh escaped as he waited for me to step inside.

He stood in the doorway, looking left and right. ‘I keep expecting to see her coming along the road, hear her feet tip-tapping. Lucy can be a brisk walker when she chooses.’

The door creaked closed. I had not noticed before that it needed oiling.

The drawing room was hot. Even the tigerskin rug looked subdued, its cold eye now ever so slightly sympathetic. I half expected the elephant tusks on the wall to turn floor-wise in sympathy.

The captain did not flinch from stating the obvious. ‘Lucy not with Alison then?’

‘Mrs Hart thinks Alison is staying here.’

‘You didn’t . . .?’

‘No.’

He frowned. ‘Was Mrs Hart curious as to your visit?’

‘She wouldn’t have expected me to know anything. I returned a borrowed novel, that’s all.’

The two of us remained standing. It was up to him now. I would find a way of leaving shortly. This was nothing to do with me. He stood between me and the door. In his stillness, he reminded me for all the world of a lead soldier. His breath came in shallow bursts. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart. ‘Could I prevail . . . would you . . . a drop of whisky.’

‘Yes of course.’ I went to the sideboard. The carved Zulus stared impassively as I unstoppered the decanter and poured the amber liquor into a cut-glass tumbler.

‘Soda?’

‘A dash.’

I placed the glass on the carved table beside his chair, so that he would sit down.

‘You were gone a long time,’ he said as he sipped the whisky.

‘Mrs Hart wouldn’t have thought so. She’s a woman who likes company.’ I perched on the chair arm opposite him.

‘Mrs Hart would be highly agitated if she knew the girls were missing.’

‘Captain, I’m sure you’ll be able to rely on police discretion, if that seems the best course of action.’

I did not say that the police would hardly welcome a missing persons investigation, not with a murder to solve.

‘But you saw what the note said.’

‘Yes.’ Stay non-committal, I warned myself. The note had been written by someone with a love of suspense novels, or sensational true stories from the other side of the Atlantic. Yet to disregard it would be foolish.

‘I want to believe it’s a prank.’ The captain finished his whisky. ‘And at the same, I don’t want to believe it’s a prank, not if Lucy did it.’ His hand began to tremble. ‘I thought . . . when I saw the bobby this morning, I thought . . . I feared the worst. Dashed clodhopper, near giving me a bad turn. I’m my granddaughter’s guardian – but it seems I haven’t guarded her well enough.’ The whisky had done little to revive him. Pale and drawn, he looked on the verge of collapse. ‘You saw what the blighters say. “Call police she will die.” Daren’t risk it. And I don’t have a thousand pounds.’

‘Someone thinks you do.’

‘Then someone is seriously misinformed.’ He nodded at the medieval suit of armour. ‘He’s worth something. Is it a ploy to rob me of what I love best?’

I did not know whether he meant Lucy, or the suit of armour.

I refilled his glass. Slowly, the whisky seemed to restore him a little. ‘Whoever’s done this nasty trick doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. I’ve routed tribes-men. I’ve outwitted the Boer. Comes to campaigns, this blackmailer has found more than his match. Harm Lucy and I’ll run him through. Who is it? Who’s taken her?’

‘You don’t know that someone has taken her. Or why would Alison go missing too?’

He took another gulp of whisky and answered himself as to who had taken Lucy. ‘Some damn theatrical type.
Mixing with the wrong sort. Well, let him send me his next set of instructions. I shall rendezvous and shoot the rotter through the mouth.’

‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that.’

We were getting nowhere. If Lucy had been a child, or even fifteen, sixteen, I would have offered to help. But to do any more seemed like interfering. I stood up to go.

Inspector Charles had asked me to say nothing about finding Lawrence Milner’s body. But murder cannot stay a secret long. If the captain did not contact the police, and something terrible had happened to Lucy and Alison, something connected with the murder, I would never forgive myself.

‘Captain, there’s something you should know. Something happened last night that made Miss Jamieson and me so late in coming back after the play.’

‘To do with Lucy?’

‘No. Nothing I’ve said about Lucy and Alison changes. You’re acquainted with the Milners.’

‘Yes.’

He sounded impatient, as though I were about to begin a gossipy conversation.

‘Mr Milner was murdered last night.’

His body went slack, as if what little energy he possessed suddenly drained from him. His eyes closed. ‘Was he . . .’ Then ‘… but who else?’ The tick of the clock grew louder. Words deserted him for a long moment.

It seemed odd to me that he said ‘but who else’. Did he mean who else was murdered, or who else knew, or who else could have done it?

‘Who else what?’ I asked.

His hand shook as he drained the whisky glass. ‘How was he murdered?’

‘I was asked not to say anything. The police are interviewing people. I expect they’ll want to talk to Lucy, and the others who were at the theatre last night, and to his friends and associates. You knew him very well, I believe?’

It was phrased innocently but the effect was electric. The old soldier’s mouth dropped open, like a baby bird’s beak. He did not answer my question but gave me a beseeching look as he changed the subject. ‘At one time, I wouldn’t have been so useless. I would have acted decisively. I would have marched out there and known what to do. I’ve grown unused to . . . I don’t even go out very much any more. Please don’t go. Help me. The police won’t want to know about Lucy with a murder on their hands, and they could think there’s some connection with Lucy and Alison going missing. Do you think they’re in danger?’

I looked at Lucy’s photograph, her high cheek bones and determined chin. No one would dare to harm such an exquisite creature. Wherever she was, I felt sure she would be safe.

‘What is it you want me to do?’

Hope lit his eyes and he leaned forward. His words came out in a great rush. ‘You’ll help me? What do you charge? I’m not a rich man but I’ll find the money to pay you. I’ll beg, borrow, steal.’

‘That won’t be necessary. I’m . . .’ I did not want to say that I was on another assignment that would easily cover my time. ‘If you want me to help, I shall gladly do so for the rest of today. If I’m unsuccessful, you must agree to go to the police.’

‘I want you to find her.’

‘But is that agreed? If I come to the point where I think it the right thing to do, I’ll go to the police myself.’

‘Very well. Whatever you say. I agree.’

‘Tell me, had you and Lucy quarrelled? Or had she given any indication of being dissatisfied with her lot, of wanting to . . . go on a visit, have a change of scene?’

‘Nothing. Nothing of that sort at all.’

‘May I take a look at Lucy’s room?’

That would give him time to calm down, and me time to think.

‘Yes, yes. Come and take a look at her room. I can’t look through her things. Never have, never will. Female matters.’ He rose creakily to his feet.

I followed him towards the rear of the flat, dodging antlers and tusks, swords and shields, passing other doors that must have been dining room, bedroom, kitchen. We reached the last room, at the back of the house.

‘She has the larger of the two bedrooms. Had it done out for her.’

The wallpaper was a pale blue, dotted with forget-me-nots. A white candlewick counterpane covered the bed. The furniture consisted of a dressing table, wardrobe and tallboy in polished walnut – a neat and tidy room, almost as if it were ready for inspection.

‘Is it always this tidy, Captain?’

He shook his head. ‘Can’t answer that one. Not my territory.’

On the bedside table lay a copy of Thomas Hardy’s poems and stories, and the novel,
Two on a Tower
.

On the top of the wardrobe was a brown leather suitcase.

‘Does she have another suitcase?’

‘Only that one.’

Disliking the thought of going through Lucy’s things. I sat on the bed, and looked round the room, as though it would deliver up some clue without prompting. ‘I still find it hard to picture your family life, Captain.’

He stood in the doorway, hand against the jamb. ‘I’ve made a mess of things.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, in every way. I should have stayed in the army. That was my life.’

‘And your wife, what did she think?’

‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t believe in having a wife who would travel with me. She stayed at home. I wasn’t there when she died.’ He lowered his head and covered his face with his hands. ‘I had a batman. He did everything for me. Poor man died in London in 1903.’

Was it my imagination, or did he seem more put out by the loss of his batman than the death of his wife? But at least he was talking.

Then he turned to go. ‘I’ll leave you to look round.’

‘No, please stay. Your son was also in South Africa, you said?’

‘My son?’

‘Lucy’s father.’

‘Apple of my eye. Didn’t realise he’d intended to follow in my footsteps. Unlike me, took his wife with him. She died in the Transvaal of fever, shortly after Lucy was born. I think it made my son careless of his life, with terrible consequences. I resigned my commission, to bring Lucy home. People said put her in an orphanage, but I couldn’t do that.’

His telling of his life did not ring true somehow. It
combined uncertainty, almost if he were unsure he had ever had a wife, and the glibness of an oft-repeated tale.

I opened the drawers of the dressing table, and the tallboy, disturbing underwear, handkerchiefs and stockings. In the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe lay neatly folded cardigans and a stole.

The captain stood in the doorway, watching.

‘Does she have a desk?’ I asked.

‘No, no desk.’

‘Where does she keep her writing case, papers and books, the script for the play, that sort of thing?’

‘Her books are out here, in the hall, on the top shelf. We share the bookcase.’

‘I’ll look in a moment.’ I stayed in the bedroom, bobbed down and pulled a box from under the bed. The captain turned away. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Don’t want to pry.’

On top of the box was a birthday dates book, an address book, and an autograph book dating back to her school days and including the signatures of some of the professional actors who had played in Harrogate.

A fashion magazine caught my eye. I flicked through to see whether it contained any notes.

Paper slipped from the magazine, but it was where the pages had been cut. Words and letters had been snipped. The ransom note had been cut and pasted from this fashion magazine.