A Murder of Quality (3 page)

But Stella Rode
had
parentage. It all came back to her now. She was the Glaston girl. The girl whose marriage was reported in the editorial, the girl who won the summer competition; Samuel Glaston’s daughter from Branxome. She had a card in Miss Brimley’s index.

Abruptly she stood up, the letter still in her hand, and walked to the uncurtained window. Just in front of her was a contemporary window-box of woven white metal. It was odd, she reflected, how she could never get anything to grow in that window-box. She looked down into the street, a slight, sensible figure leaning forward a little and framed by the incandescent fog outside; fog made yellow from the stolen light of London’s streets. She could just distinguish the street lamps far below, pale and sullen. She suddenly felt the need for fresh air, and on an impulse quite alien to her usual calm, she opened the window wide. The quick cold and the angry surge of noise burst in on her, and the insidious fog followed. The sound of traffic was constant, so that for a moment she thought it was the turning of some great machine. Then above its steady growl she heard the newsboys. Their cries were like the cries of gulls against a gathering storm. She could see them now, sentinels among the hastening shadows.

It might be true. That had always been the difficulty. Right through the war it was the same restless search. It might be true. It was no use relating reports to probability when there was no quantum of knowledge from which to start. She remembered the first intelligence from France on flying bombs, wild talk of concrete runways in the depths of a forest. You had to resist the dramatic, you had to hold out against it. Yet it might be true. Tomorrow, the day after, those newsboys down there might be shouting it, and Stella Rode
nèe
Glaston might be dead. And if that was so, if there was the remotest chance that this man was plotting to kill this woman, then she, Ailsa Brimley, must do what she could to prevent it. Besides, Stella Glaston had a claim on her assistance if anyone did: both her father and her grandfather had taken the
Voice
, and when Stella married five years ago Miss Brimley had put a couple of lines about it in the editorial. The Glastons sent her a Christmas card every year. They were one of the original families to subscribe …

It was cold at the window, but she remained there, still fascinated by the half-hidden shadows joining and parting beneath her, and the useless street lights burning painfully among them. She began to imagine him as one of those shadows, pressing and jostling, his murderer’s eyes turned to sockets of dark. And suddenly she was frightened and needed help.

But not the police, not yet. If Stella Rode had wanted that she would have gone herself. Why hadn’t she? For love? For fear of looking a fool? Because instinct was not evidence? They wanted fact. But the fact of murder was death. Must they wait for that?

Who would help? She thought at once of Landsbury, but he was farming in Rhodesia. Who else had been with them in the war? Fielding and Jebedee were dead, Steed-Asprey vanished. Smiley – where was he? George Smiley, the cleverest and perhaps the oddest of them all. Of course, Miss Brimley remembered now. He made that improbable marriage and went back to research at Oxford. But he hadn’t stayed there … The marriage had broken up … What
had
he done after that?

She returned to her desk and picked up the S–Z directory. Ten minutes later she was sitting in a taxi, heading for Sloane Square. In her neatly gloved hand she held a cardboard folder containing Stella Rode’s card from the index and the correspondence which had passed between them at the time of the summer competition. She was nearly at Piccadilly when she remembered she’d left the office window open. It didn’t seem to matter much.

‘With other people it’s Persian cats or golf. With me it’s the
Voice
and my readers. I’m a ridiculous spinster, I know, but there it is. I won’t go to the police until I’ve tried
something
, George.’

‘And you thought you’d try me?’

‘Yes.’

She was sitting in the study of George Smiley’s house in Bywater Street; the only light came from the complicated lamp on his desk, a black spider of a thing shining brightly on to the manuscript notes which covered the desk.

‘So you’ve left the Service?’ she said.

‘Yes, yes, I have.’ He nodded his round head vigorously, as if reassuring himself that a distasteful experience was really over, and mixed Miss Brimley a whisky and soda. ‘I had another spell there after … Oxford. It’s all very different in peacetime, you know,’ he continued.

Miss Brimley nodded.

‘I can imagine it. More time to be bitchy.’ Smiley said nothing, just lit a cigarette and sat down opposite her.

‘And the people have changed. Fielding, Steed, Jebedee. All gone.’ She said this in a matter-of-fact way as she took from her large sensible handbag Stella Rode’s letter. ‘This is the letter, George.’

When he had read it, he held it briefly towards the lamp, his round face caught by the light in a moment of almost comic earnestness. Watching him, Miss Brimley wondered what impression he made on those who did not know him well. She used to think of him as the most forgettable man she had ever met; short and plump, with heavy spectacles and thinning hair, he was at first sight the very prototype of an unsuccessful middle-aged bachelor in a sedentary occupation. His natural diffidence in most practical matters was reflected in his clothes, which were costly and unsuitable, for he was clay in the hands of his tailor, who robbed him.

He had put down the letter on the small marquetry table beside him, and was looking at her owlishly.

‘This other letter she sent you, Brim. Where is it?’

She handed him the folder. He opened it and after a moment read aloud Stella Rode’s other letter:

Dear Miss Fellowship
,

I would like to submit the following suggestion for your ‘Kitchen Hints’ competition
.

Make your basic batch of cake mixture once a month. Cream equal quantities of fat and sugar and add one egg for every six ounces of the mixture. For puddings and cakes, add flour to the required quantity of basic mixture
.

This will keep well for a month
.

I enclose stamped addressed envelope
.

Yours sincerely,
Stella Rode (nèe Glaston)

PS – Incidentally, you can prevent wire wool from rusting by keeping it in a jar of soapy water. Are we allowed two suggestions? If so, please can this be my second?

‘She won the competition,’ Miss Brimley observed, ‘but that’s not the point. This is what I want to tell you, George. She’s a Glaston, and the Glastons have been reading the
Voice
since it started. Stella’s grandfather was old Rufus Glaston, a Lancashire pottery king; he and John Landsbury’s father built chapels and tabernacles in practically every village in the Midlands. When Rufus died the
Voice
put out a memorial edition and old Landsbury himself wrote the obituary. Samuel Glaston took on his father’s business, but had to move south because of his health. He ended up near Bournemouth, a widower with one daughter, Stella. She’s the last of all that family. The whole lot are as down to earth as you could wish, Stella included, I should think. I don’t think any of them is likely to be suffering from delusions of persecution.’

Smiley was looking at her in astonishment.

‘My dear Brim, I can’t possibly take that in. How on earth do you know all this?’

Miss Brimley smiled apologetically.

‘The Glastons are easy – they’re almost part of the magazine. They send us Christmas cards, and boxes of chocolates on the anniversary of our foundation. We’ve got about five hundred families who form what I call our Establishment. They were in on the
Voice
from the start and they’ve kept up ever since. They write to us, George; if they’re worried they write and say so; if they’re getting married, moving house, retiring from work, if they’re ill, depressed, or angry, they write. Not often, Heaven knows; but enough.’

‘How do you remember it all?’

‘I don’t. I keep a card index. I always write back, you see … only …’

‘Yes?’

Miss Brimley looked at him earnestly.

‘This is the first time anyone has written because she’s frightened.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I’ve only had one bright idea so far. I seem to remember Adrian Fielding had a brother who taught at Carne …’

‘He’s a housemaster there, if he hasn’t retired.’

‘No, he retires this Half – it was in
The Times
some weeks ago, in that little bit on the Court page where Carne always announces itself. It said: “Carne School reassembles today for the Lent Half. Mr T. R. Fielding will retire at the end of the Half, having completed his statutory fifteen years as a housemaster.” ’

Smiley laughed.

‘Really, Brim, your memory is absurd!’

‘It was the mention of Fielding … Anyway, I thought you could ring him up. You must know him.’

‘Yes, yes. I know him. At least, I met him once at Magdalen High Table. But –’ Smiley coloured a little.

‘But what, George?’

‘Well, he’s not quite the man his brother was, you know.’

‘How could he be?’ Miss Brimley rejoined a little sharply. ‘But he can tell you something about Stella Rode. And her husband.’

‘I don’t think I could do that on the telephone. I think I’d rather go and see him. But what’s to stop you ringing up Stella Rode?’

‘Well, I can’t tonight, can I? Her husband will be in. I thought I’d put a letter in the post to her tonight telling her she can come to see me any time. But,’ she continued, making a slight, impatient movement with her foot, ‘I want to do something
now
, George.’

Smiley nodded and went to the telephone. He rang directory inquiries and asked for Terence Fielding’s number. After a long delay he was told to ring Carne School central exchange, who would connect him with whomever he required. Miss Brimley, watching him, wished she knew a little more about George Smiley, how much of that diffidence was assumed, how vulnerable he was.

‘The best,’ Adrian had said. ‘The strongest and the best.’

But so many men learnt strength during the war, learnt terrible things, and put aside their knowledge with a shudder when it ended.

The number was ringing now. She heard the dialling tone and for a moment was filled with apprehension. For the first time she was afraid of making a fool of herself, afraid of becoming involved in unlikely explanations with angular, suspicious people.

‘Mr Terence Fielding, please …’ A pause.

‘Fielding, good evening. My name is George Smiley; I knew your brother well in the war. We have in fact met … Yes, yes, quite right – Magdalen, was it not, the summer before last? Look, I wonder if I might come and see you on a personal matter … it’s a little difficult to discuss on the telephone. A friend of mine has received a rather disturbing letter from the wife of a Carne master … Well, I – Rode, Stella Rode; her husband …’

He suddenly stiffened, and Miss Brimley, her eyes fixed upon him, saw with alarm how his chubby face broke into an expression of pain and disgust. She no longer heard what he was saying. She could only watch the dreadful transformation of his face, the whitening knuckles of his hand clutching the receiver. He was looking at her now, saying something … it was too late. Stella Rode was dead. She had been murdered late on Wednesday night. They’d actually been dining with Fielding the night it happened.

3 The Night of the Murder

The seven-five from Waterloo to Yeovil is not a popular train, though it provides an excellent breakfast. Smiley had no difficulty in finding a first-class compartment to himself. It was a bitterly cold day, dark and the sky heavy with snow. He sat huddled in a voluminous travelling coat of Continental origin, holding in his gloved hands a bundle of the day’s papers. Because he was a precise man and did not care to be hurried, he had arrived thirty minutes before the train was due to depart. Still tired after the stresses of the previous night, when he had sat up talking with Ailsa Brimley until Heaven knew what hour, he was disinclined to read. Looking out of the window on to an almost empty station, he caught sight, to his great surprise, of Miss Brimley making her way along the platform, peering in at the windows, a carrier bag in her hand. He lowered the window and called to her.

‘My dear Brim, what are you doing here at this dreadful hour? You should be in bed.’

She sat down opposite him and began unpacking her bag and handing him its contents: thermos, sandwiches, and chocolate.

‘I didn’t know whether there was a breakfast car,’ she explained; ‘and besides, I wanted to come and see you off. You’re such a dear, George, and I wish I could come with you, but Unipress would go mad if I did. The only time they notice you is when you’re not there.’

‘Haven’t you seen the papers?’ he asked.

‘Just briefly, on the way here. They seem to think it wasn’t him, but some madman …’

‘I know, Brim. That’s what Fielding said, wasn’t it?’ There was a moment’s awkward silence.

‘George, am I being an awful ass, letting you go off like this? I was sure last night, but now I wonder …’

‘After you left I rang Ben Sparrow of Special Branch. You remember him, don’t you? He was with us in the war. I told him the whole story.’

‘George! At three in the morning?’

‘Yes. He’s ringing the Divisional Superintendent at Carne. He’ll tell him about the letter, and that I’m coming down. Ben had an idea that a man named Rigby would be handling the case. Rigby and Ben were at police college together.’ He looked at her kindly for a moment. ‘Besides, I’m a man of leisure, Brim. I shall enjoy the change.’