A Question of Inheritance (17 page)

Hugo was about to follow him out of the police station when the Superintendent came out of his office. The sergeant handed him Hugo’s envelope.

‘Quick work, Mr Hawksworth. Thank you,’ the Superintendent said. ‘I dare say that’ll be very valuable to us. Like I said, there’s nothing so useful as a trained eye.’

Hugo said, ‘That man who just left – is he the one who went up to the Castle on Christmas Day?’

‘Yes, that’s Mr Sampson, although I have a feeling that when we look into it we’ll find it’s an assumed name.’

‘Does he have a explanation for his visit to the Castle?’

‘None that he’s willing to share with us. He just said he had his own reasons for seeing his lordship. Did he return to the Castle later that evening in another attempt to have an interview with Lord Selchester? No, he was in his cottage all evening. Is there anyone who could vouch for him? No.’

‘You’re not holding him?’

The Superintendent shook his head. ‘We don’t have grounds. There’s no evidence and nothing to connect him with Mr Seynton. He won’t be going anywhere. We’ve put a watch on the cottage and I’ve told him he’s not to leave Selchester at present. Besides, with the weather closing in the way it is, he won’t get far if he does try to get away. No, he’ll stay put, and in good time I’ll get the truth out of him about that visit.’

Looking at the Superintendent’s implacable face, Hugo suspected he would. ‘If the intended victim was the Earl, an angry man turning up demanding to see him must be presumed to have a motive for doing him a mischief.’

‘Exactly so,’ the Superintendent said. ‘But Lord Selchester wasn’t killed. He’s not the subject of this inquiry, although I’m inclined to agree with you that his lordship’s a more likely victim than Mr Seynton. Suspicion isn’t fact. I can’t hold Mr Sampson on suspicion. Once I have more information as to who exactly he is and why he’s in Selchester, then we’ll see.’

Hugo left the police station with something vague tugging at the back of his mind. Back at the Castle, he told Leo about the encounter with Mr Sampson. ‘The infuriating thing is I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Or seen his photograph somewhere. I recognise his face.’

‘You’ve a good memory for faces. You always did have, and your work has sharpened the faculty. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it’ll come back to you.’

Hugo walked around the library, picking up an inkstand here, and a book there. ‘I don’t think I’ve met him, I think it was a photograph of him somewhere. The name doesn’t mean anything to me. Sampson. Have you ever known anybody called Sampson?’

Leo had gone back to his letters. ‘Not outside the Bible, no.’

‘It has a P in it,’ Hugo said, but Leo wasn’t listening.

Chapter Eleven

Scene 1

Reason told Hugo that even with a murderer on the loose, it was unlikely that anyone other than Gus could be in danger. A policeman was on guard at the Castle, Leo was keeping an eye on Georgia; they should all be safe.

So he told himself as he picked up his briefcase and set off for the Hall the next morning. Would he ever get used to the routine of a desk job, instead of using his time to the best advantage?

He was beginning to doubt it.

The tea lady came round with the cup of weak coffee and the plain tea biscuit that was his lot mid-morning. As he dunked the biscuit in his cup and gazed out of the window, it suddenly came to him where he had seen Sampson’s face before.

He left his half-eaten biscuit and his half-drunk coffee and limped out into the corridor. Mrs Clutton was, as usual, standing in front of her rack of index cards, sorting with nimble fingers. ‘Do we still keep old newspapers at the Hall?’ he asked.

Mrs Clutton looked round in surprise. She pushed a drawer back in its place and said, ‘Such as the back copies of
The Times
? We do. There’s a plan afoot to get rid of them, London saying there’s no need for us to have duplicate copies here, but we’re fighting them. I don’t want to have to ask Archives every time I need to look something up in a newspaper, thank you. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?’

Hugo was about to say he’d go and have a look, and then he remembered that if he had a good memory for faces, it was nothing to Mrs Clutton’s for details and facts. ‘I’m trying to recall something that happened soon after the war, I think in late ’forty-six. Some man, whose name I can’t remember, embezzled a lot of money in rather scandalous circumstances. He was going to be prosecuted, but before he could be arrested he fled the country. There was quite a flap about it at the time. Possibly there were political implications.’

Mrs Clutton’s face took on the eager attentiveness of a truffle hound who has just spotted a fine example of that delectable root under a tree. ‘I do indeed remember the case. Would you like me to go and find the relevant newspapers?’ She hardly waited for an answer but was off out of the room.

Hugo returned his own room confident that he’d have an answer before the end of the day. Which he did, and since Sir Bernard was still away, so there would be no summons from Mrs Tempest, Hugo decided to finish work for the day. He wanted to tell Freya and Leo what he’d found out. He put on his tweed overcoat, plucked his hat from the hatstand in the corner of his office picked up the folders on his desk – memo from Sir Bernard to all senior staff:
No files or papers are to be left overnight in or on desks
– and went along the corridor to hand them over for safekeeping. ‘Here you are, Mrs Clutton. They’re all there.’

He caught the bus to Selchester. As he got off, he saw Last Hurrah tied to a railing outside the post office. Good, that meant Freya was here. He waited for her beside her horse, and in a few minutes she came out.

‘Hullo, is something up?’

‘I left work early. I think I’ve found out who the man in Nightingale Cottage is. Or rather my admirable Mrs Clutton, an Archivist at the Hall, has.’

Freya looked interested. ‘Mr Sampson?’

‘Mr Sampson, nothing. His name is Saul Ingham.’

Freya frowned. ‘That name rings a faint bell. Nothing recent though.’

Hugo said, ‘It was headline news in 1946, a big financial scandal. Saul Ingham was in the thick of it. It seemed an open and shut case and he faced several years imprisonment.’

Freya said, ‘I remember now. He vanished.’

Hugo nodded. ‘Yes. He did a flit. Like Lord Selchester. Unlike him, he hasn’t been seen since, dead or alive. He simply disappeared, presumably to another country and a new identity.’

‘Didn’t it turn out later that he wasn’t guilty after all?’ Freya said. ‘Someone spilled the beans and it turned out that he had been falsely accused for? Set up as a fall guy?’

Hugo said, ‘Quite right. I’ve been looking at the newspaper accounts of the time.’

‘So why,’ Freya said, ‘didn’t he reappear and take his place in society? If he were living abroad under another name, he’d surely have kept an eye on what was happening in England. Hadn’t he left a wife and a child behind?’

‘He had. Difficult for her, and it seems he never got in touch with her. She thought he was dead, but as with Selchester’s wife, there was no possibility of getting a divorce or anything legally settled. She thought he was so shocked by the accusation, which he’d always denied, that he’d taken his own life. Anyhow, the whole point is, I think this is our man and for some reason he’s turned up here in Selchester.’

‘Desperate to see Gus,’ Freya said. ‘Why? And where and when?’

‘Gus has travelled on the continent quite a bit, especially in Italy and Greece. It’s possible that their paths crossed. I telephoned Gus to ask him if he had heard of the man under either name and the answer is no. Not that it means much, as this guy could have been using an entirely different name. I’m getting a copy of the photo that was in the papers, so we can see if Gus recognises him.’

‘Have you told the Superintendent?’ Freya said. ‘Shouldn’t you pass on this information?’

Hugo said, ‘The police took him in for questioning, but haven’t held him. They have their own ways of finding out things and what I have is only supposition. Meanwhile, I thought it might be useful to go along and have a word with him. He’s not cooperating with the police and even if they find out who he is and what he’s up to, then he may not be willing to talk.’

‘So you’re planning to call on him?’

‘I am.’

Freya untied Last Hurrah. ‘You do realise we might be going to call on the murderer?’ She shoved her horse to one side and made him walk on.

That had occurred to Hugo. ‘The prospect doesn’t frighten you, does it?’

‘I’m more curious than alarmed.’

‘There’s safety in numbers. If he is a murderer and he makes a habit of it, I doubt if he’s going to try and take two of us out. That really would hit the headlines,’ Hugo said.

Scene 2

They walked past the Cathedral, Hugo struggling to keep up with Last Hurrah, who was dancing along on impatient hooves. Then across the Green to Nightingale Cottage. ‘Even if it is a wild-goose chase,’ Hugo said, ‘it gives me a chance to see inside the cottage, which I never have.’

‘There’s Fred Camford. I suppose he’s on duty to watch the cottage,’ Freya said. ‘I’ll get him to hold Last Hurrah.’ She walked her horse across and handed the reins over to the constable. He held them with one hand and touched his helmet to her with the other. Last Hurrah gave an impatient jerk and lowered his head to get at the grass.

There was a brass knocker on the door, in the shape of a bird. ‘Doesn’t look like a Nightingale to me,’ Hugo said, as he rapped on the door. ‘Much too burly; it should be called Cuckoo Cottage.’

At first it seemed that nobody was at home or, if Mr Ingham aka Sampson was there, he wasn’t going to answer the door. Then they heard a bolt being drawn back and the door opened and there was the man that Hugo had seen in the police station and whose picture had been all over the newspapers.

‘Mr Sampson?’ Hugo said. He put a foot inside the door before the man could close it, and he and Freya were inside in a flash.

The man did not seem happy to see them. ‘Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?’

Freya said, ‘Consider it a courtesy call, to a new neighbour. We’re from the Castle.’

Hugo’s astonished eyes were taking in the surroundings. Clutter didn’t begin to describe it, and what clutter! Corn dolls hung from the beams together with crystals and bundles of feathers and a contraption of small mirrors clinked strangely together. The walls had bookshelves interspersed with paintings of a peculiar kind: a single eye gazing out from a blue triangle; a red shore with strange figures walking along it; a black square with a swirling black pattern in its centre.

The man caught Hugo’s expression and gave a laugh. ‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’

Hugo said, ‘Your hosts seem to be people of rather eclectic tastes. I knew that they had a reputation for being eccentric and interested in folklore, but I had no idea they went in for all this sort of stuff.’

Sampson said, ‘Don’t look at me. I don’t know them from Adam. I simply answered an advertisement in the newspaper because I wanted to be in Selchester.’

Mrs Partridge was right; this man’s tan was striking. Hugo would be prepared to bet that he’d spent time in a very hot country. Asia? Or maybe in the Middle East. Put that together with his straight carriage and the kind of taut fitness that went with hard physical activity and it spelled soldier. A mercenary?

In a moment of inspiration he said, ‘You joined the Foreign Legion. That’s what you did when you vanished, isn’t it? You’re Saul Ingham.’

Saul said with a wry laugh, ‘How clever of you. So you know who I am. I suppose you’ll tell the police, and I’ll be carted off for embezzlement. And a murder charge on top of it, judging by the way the police were interrogating me.’

Hugo said, ‘I don’t know about murder, but nobody will be arresting you for embezzlement. If you were with the Foreign Legion, no wonder you never got to know that your name had been cleared. You could have been back in England a free man any time these last five years.’

Saul looked at him in astonishment and at last said, ‘You’re making that up.’

Freya said, ‘He’s not.’

Saul sank into a chair at the table. Under his tan his face had gone completely white. Hugo went over to the sideboard, picked up a decanter, eyed it doubtfully and poured some into a glass. ‘It’s whisky. Not very good whisky, but you need it.’

Saul made as though to refuse the glass held out to him, and then he took it and swallowed the whisky in a gulp. Colour began to come back into his face. ‘Five years? I could have come back five years ago?’

‘Yes,’ Hugo said.

Freya said, ‘Why did you come back now, if you thought that you would still be arrested?’

‘I signed up for seven years with the Legion, and that’s enough for any man. I went through the war serving in the Army, but that was a picnic compared to the Legion.’

Hugo said, ‘It has a reputation for tough soldiering.’

Saul went on, ‘I came back for revenge. Selchester ruined my life and deprived me of my wife and my child. They emigrated to Australia to start a new life. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see them again. He destroyed my reputation and my livelihood, and on his word I’d have been locked up in prison for something I never did. Why do you think I’m in Selchester? Revenge. I want to take revenge on the bastard who ruined my life.’

‘You’re talking about the Earl of Selchester?’ Hugo said.

‘Yes, I am. With his ancient name and his impeccable reputation and devoted government service. All true, and yet what kind of a man is he really? What about the private man? I can tell you that as well as his cold heart and ruthless ways, he’s infinitely cunning. He’s a man full of subtlety.’

Hugo looked at him, puzzled. Gus? Cold heart and ruthless ways? Then it dawned on him.

Freya was already there. ‘You’re talking about the last Lord Selchester.’

Saul’s head shot up. ‘What do you mean, the last Lord Selchester? Lord Selchester is very much alive and up at the Castle. I wish he weren’t. I wish he were dead and six foot under.’

Freya said simply, ‘He is. The one you’re talking about was the seventeenth Earl. He died more than seven years ago, although they didn’t discover his body for a long time.’

‘The present Earl, the one at the Castle now, is the eighteenth Earl,’ Hugo said.

‘You’re lying,’ Saul said.

‘No,’ Freya said. ‘The seventeenth Earl was my uncle. Dead and buried.’

‘How did he die? He wasn’t old and was fighting fit the last time I set eyes on him.’

Hugo said, ‘He was murdered.’

Saul let out a shout of bitter laughter. ‘Murdered? Well, I’ll raise a glass to that; it’s not often men get what they deserve. Good riddance to him.’

Scene 3

Hugo and Freya came out of Nightingale Cottage, and stood on the Green together. Hugo said, ‘I think in all honesty I must go and tell MacLeod what we’ve just learned.’

Freya said, ‘Will he be annoyed at you for talking to a suspect?’

‘Let him be annoyed, I’m supposed to be liaising on Sir Bernard’s behalf. I haven’t threatened the witness or frightened him away.’ He nodded at the stolid figure of Constable Camford, who was standing under the solitary lamppost, still holding Last Hurrah. ‘He’ll know I’ve gone in there anyway. Our names will have been duly written down in Fred’s notebook.’

‘I’ll ride back to the Castle, and tell Leo what we’ve found out.’ Freya said.

Superintendent MacLeod was still at the police station. Hugo didn’t think the Superintendent looked exactly overjoyed to see him, but he listened attentively while Hugo told him what he and Freya had found out.

MacLeod thought for a while, and then said, ‘That clears up the mystery of why he went tearing off to the Castle. But from what you say he had a grudge against Lord Selchester, not realising that the present Lord Selchester isn’t the same one. He went up to the Castle to do violence, so who can say what he did while he was there?’

Hugo said, ‘If he was in such a temper, it seems unlikely that he would go to all that effort to rig the wiring. Without any idea who might go into the hothouse.’

The Superintendent said, ‘I don’t know much about the Foreign Legion. It’s one of those things you read in the boys’ own papers, all sounds very dramatic and romantic, but I don’t suppose it’s a bit like that.’

‘It’s a tough life.’

‘So,’ MacLeod said, ‘he’s the kind of man who’d be quick-witted, good in an emergency and swift to grasp any opportunity that was offered. He came in through that back door; he might very well have seen the fuse box and taken an idea into his head.’

Hugo said, ‘It’s a big leap from seeing a fuse box as you go past in a temper and returning under cover of darkness to set up a trap that might kill anyone in the household.’