Gently at a Gallop (16 page)

‘I’ve come from the Lodge,’ he said. ‘I’ve been talking to Marie.’

Stogumber drew himself straighter in his chair. He looked quickly at Gently, then away.

‘A strange young woman,’ Gently said. ‘You don’t quite know if you can believe what she tells you. Or even if she believes it herself. I’m inclined to think your daughter is a hysteric.’

‘Her mother was one,’ Stogumber said. ‘Poor Stella. It ran in the family.’

‘She believes she has a supernatural lover,’ Gently said. ‘One who is invisible.’

Stogumber let his veinous hand rise and fall on the desk.

‘But of course, her lover’s real enough,’ Gently said. ‘Real enough to be responsible for her condition. Real enough to write her amorous poems. Real enough to be hunted on the heath by Berney. He’s flesh and blood, and he has a name – and I’m wondering just how many people know it.’

Stogumber groaned and closed his eyes.

‘I think you’ll be one of them,’ Gently said. ‘You must know who your daughter has been associating with, who came here often, was much in her company.’

Stogumber shook his head.

‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘And your son knows too. And your cousin. And Creke, naturally – he tumbled to it. And keeping Creke quiet will be expensive.’

‘Oh, heavens, heavens!’ Stogumber groaned.

‘It can’t go on,’ Gently said. ‘There are too many people in the secret. And we’ll put on pressure. Someone’ll crack.’

Stogumber’s eyes opened wildly. His lips were trembling.

‘So suppose you tell me,’ Gently said.

‘You want a . . . confession?’ Stogumber stammered.

Gently stared at him, saying nothing.

Suddenly Stogumber’s hand reached to his breast and he began to breathe heavily. The drooping flesh of his cheeks had lost colour, his eyes weren’t focusing on Gently. He fumbled with a drawer. He brought out a brandy flask and tipped a little of the brandy into the metal cup. He swallowed it jerkily, leaning on the desk, his eyes watery and seeing nothing. Then he let the cup fall and sat huddled, his hand feeling for his breast again. His eyes found Gently. He shook his head.

‘I’m old,’ he said. ‘A tired old man.’ He made a little choking sound. ‘I deserved better . . . I deserved a daughter with a little love for me.’ He squeezed his eyes shut. Rheum wet his cheeks. ‘Lachlan,’ he said. ‘Did you ask Lachlan?’

‘Yes, I asked him,’ Gently said.

‘Aye . . . Lachlan wouldn’t tell you,’ Stogumber said. His lips fluttered, he bowed his head. ‘The curse . . . it’s on him too,’ he said. ‘Since he was a boy . . . you could always see it. He’s the last, and he’ll never marry.’ He checked, nursing his breast. ‘Leo . . . ?’

‘I’ve questioned Mr Redmayne,’ Gently said.

‘Aye, aye,’ Stogumber said. ‘Leo sees all, but Leo says nothing. So it’s the old man then . . . confess, and die. Well, it’d make an apt ending. Then you’ll bury the business and go home . . . leave the Stogumbers to dree their weird.’

‘Have you ever ridden that horse?’ Gently said.

‘On my better days,’ Stogumber said. ‘It’s possible.’

‘You had a reason to kill Berney?’

‘Aye, to save the scandal. He would’ve come out with it. I couldn’t allow that.’

‘Who told you where to find him?’ Gently said.

Stogumber’s head shook. ‘No more,’ he said. ‘We’ll say I had word he would be on the heath, no matter from where. I could have known if I’d wished it.’

‘One man could have told you,’ Gently said.

‘No,’ Stogumber said. ‘None of that. If I’m to confess, it’s on my own terms. I’ll not be party to involving others.’

He sat hugging his breast, his head tilted forward, the rheum trickling on his leaden cheeks. His words had been coming struggingly, as though the weight of years was crushing his breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gently said. ‘Truly sorry.’

He rose from his chair. Stogumber lifted his head. They looked at each other for several moments. Then Gently shrugged and turned away.

Redmayne was stationed in the corridor. His face was blank as Gently came out. But he managed to conjure a ghost of his smile as he led the detective back to the hall.

‘So you didn’t buy it.’

Gently halted to face him. ‘Was I supposed to?’ he asked.

Redmayne made a faint gesture. ‘It sounded credible. The way old Jimmy was giving it to you.’

‘You should know how credible it is.’

‘Perhaps I should,’ Redmayne said. ‘And I can tell you one thing. I wasn’t Jimmy’s informant, which is what you were hinting at in there. I knew what I knew and I saw what I saw, but I was nowhere near the heath on Tuesday. So if Jimmy was tipped about Charlie’s being there, you’ll need to look a little further.’

‘Of course,’ Gently said. ‘I was forgetting. You spent all Tuesday in the back woods.’

‘In Stukey Woods,’ Redmayne said. ‘For the precise record. In praiseworthy search of
Orchis hircina
.’

‘A faultless alibi.’

‘Quite faultless. One I needn’t prove and which you can’t disprove. But keep me on your list, by all means. I’ve no interest in making it easy for you.’

He stood back from Gently, his eyes sulky, a petulant drag in his mouth; but almost immediately the expression switched, and he was his friendly self again.

‘Look – it’s no use! You have to act like a bastard, but I’m not going to act as though you really were one. What’s happened here is damnable enough without you and I behaving like kids. Suppose we have that drink?’

Gently shook his head firmly. ‘But if we’re being such friends, you can give me some information.’

‘Information about what?’

‘About the Stogumber finances.’

Redmayne’s smile went stiff.

‘It’s an angle I think we’ve neglected,’ Gently said. ‘I understand Charles Berney was a wealthy man. And when wealthy men are murdered it’s always worth checking if there are less wealthy men who benefit. Yourself, for example.’

‘I!’

‘Or James Stogumber,’ Gently shrugged. ‘Or his son, with death duties hanging over him, which cannot be very long delayed.’

‘But this is inconceivable!’

‘Is it?’ Gently said. ‘Or is it the reason why Marie didn’t marry her lover? Because he was poor? Because he had no prospects? Because Berney had the money that both of them wanted?’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying!’ Redmayne burst out. ‘Jimmy’s got money, and so has Lachlan. And as for death duties’ – he pointed to the portraits – ‘there’s a Reynolds up there that can take care of them.’

‘And you?’ Gently said.

‘Ask my broker.’

‘I’d sooner you told me,’ Gently said.

‘All right,’ Redmayne said. ‘And welcome. I hold a block of Poseidon for a start.’

‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘I may check that.’

‘And then go to the devil,’ Redmayne said. ‘My God, you’re dirty, you play it dirty. I was a fool to pretend you were a human being.’

He tramped to the door and threw it open, then stood by it, his eyes glinting. Gently went. He ignored Redmayne. Behind him he heard the door slam thunderously.

Outside, the rain was mizzling to a close and a greyish light was breaking over the heath. Gently got in the Lotus. He ran down a window, sat staring broodingly at the rain-dulled house. Then he took out Lachlan Stogumber’s two manuscripts. He spread them both against the wheel. The second sonnet was undated, though the ink appeared darker than the ink of the first. It ran:

Like Love’s two only squires we sprang to arms

And hotly reached for joy in one another,

Compounding in a kiss all past alarms

And seeking each in each his flames to smother;

Our double rapture now was single fire

That went about our bodies in fierce glee,

Our two hands joined in one devout desire

To take and tender melting ecstasy:

And sudden we could speak our dear intending

In free words, each such perfect partner finding,

Owning our loveliest love, our longed-for

blending,

With piercing thrill each one the other binding.

A kiss, a touch, and open flew the door

To all we wished, but only dreamed before.

Two sonnets; a similar style; but were they indeed original drafts . . . ?

He glanced again at the house. Redmayne stood at a window. His face was a blank paleness in the drained light.

N
O MESSAGE WAITED
for him at the police station, and Docking and his team were still out. Gently tooled the Lotus back to the Royal William and parked it in the yard with the Capris and Vivas. But before going in to lunch he took a stroll in the High Street. In a peaked-gabled Georgian building he found Crampton’s (Stationers). They were also booksellers in a small way, and after inspecting their windows, he went in.

‘Do you have any books by Lachlan Stogumber?’

It was a safe bet: he was their local author. In addition, they carried a title by Leo Redmayne,
Fumariaceae of Great Britain
. It was priced at four guineas. Gently winced, but bought it, along with Lachlan Stogumber’s
High On Ink
. The latter, clad in a brilliant psychedelic jacket, came more modestly at fifteen shillings.

He tucked the two books under his arm and sauntered in to lunch. Today the hotel dining-room was only half full and he had no difficulty in finding a secluded table. He laid the books on a chair and gave his order absent-mindedly. Somewhere, this morning, his finger had been close to it . . . why was it the coin hadn’t dropped?

He ate mechanically, scarcely noticing when the waitress changed his plates. On the screen of his brain he was slowly playing back each word and detail of his several encounters. First there’d been Redmayne, then Lachlan Stogumber, then Redmayne again, then Mrs Berney; Lachlan Stogumber, trying to steer him off his sister, Redmayne, Creke and old Stogumber, and – once more! – Redmayne. And each one, except Creke, had tried to make a sale, had tried to steer Gently in a different direction . . . surely, if you put their various attempts together a common factor, the truth, ought to emerge?

Yet strangely, it didn’t. The only common factor appeared to be an intent to confuse. Redmayne, Mrs Berney and Lachlan Stogumber had each in their way tried to hand him a
non sequitur
. Murder didn’t follow: it was tragic inevitability, supernatural intervention, or a misread accident; while old Stogumber’s unconvincing confession was a piece of desperation, aimed at the same end. They were covering: that was all. They sensed he was close, and they were trying to wrong-foot him. Perhaps the only significant point in the whole farrago was Lachlan Stogumber’s assertion that a lover needn’t have come into it . . .

Gently scrubbed his hands on a serviette and took the two books from the chair. They were published, he noticed, by the same publisher, and each bore the date of the current year. Also, they were each author-illustrated, Redmayne’s with delicate colour plates, Lachlan Stogumber’s with wavering line drawings, some of which were slyly obscene. The poems were in the style of the
New Statesman
poem, patterns of words and printer’s signs. Here and there were obscene phrases, but nothing that amounted to an articulate love-poem. Redmayne’s prose, on the other hand, had a disciplined but easy clarity, and even though his matter was technical he had succeeded in conveying a touch of his personal charm. Gently grunted. Not much that corresponded! And the critical verdict was very clear. Grant the choice of these two for authorship of the sonnets, and the poll wouldn’t go to Lachlan Stogumber.

He slapped the books together and accepted his coffee. Somewhere, he knew, he was missing something. There was a subtle factor about this case which he sensed intuitively, but which continued to elude him. Something behind there . . . He was standing on the edge of it, yet still couldn’t drag it into view.

He gulped his coffee down impatiently. Meanwhile, you dealt with the facts you had!

In Docking’s office the scene was domestic: they were making a late lunch of fish and chips. Four C.I.D. men with four packets, they sat around the desk tucking in. When Gently entered the only sounds were of rustling and champing, but then chairs scraped as the lunchers reluctantly got to their feet.

‘Carry on,’ Gently said. ‘I’ve had mine.’

‘Thanks, sir,’ Docking said. ‘We’ve been having a busy time of it. Did you have any luck with Redmayne, sir?’

‘Nothing that would go on a charge sheet,’ Gently said.

He strolled over to the window and filled his pipe. Behind him chairs scraped again and the champing recommenced. Across the M/T yard he could see shorn, sodden fields lying low and empty under a dull sky. The office, after the heat, felt almost chilly, and moisture had filmed on the window’s metal frame. Two or three of the thunder-flies, which had been so lively, now climbed about the panes looking sickly and subdued. The storm had come and the storm had gone . . . what had it brought him, that he wasn’t quite grasping?

He lit his pipe, shrugging, and sat himself on the table with the typewriter. Docking drained one of his brown bottles, balled his paper packet and wiped his hands on it.

‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve checked the list out.’ Gently nodded. ‘But no results.’

‘I wouldn’t quite say that, sir,’ Docking said. ‘There’s one of them, Brightwell, who doesn’t have an alibi.’

Gently considered. ‘Didn’t Mrs Berney mention a Brightwell?’

‘Yes sir. Said she was talking to him at the party.’

‘And he used to knock about with her?’

‘Yes, sir, he admits that. But what he says is it never amounted to anything.’

Gently blew smoke. ‘Let’s have it,’ he said.

‘Well, sir, this Brightwell lives at Clayfield. He’s an accountant who works with Livesy and Livesy, but on Tuesday he didn’t come in. Says the party upset him or something, he had to keep running to the loo. And he was alone there Tuesday. He lives with his parents, but both of them were out most of the day.’

‘Sounds promising,’ Gently said. ‘Is he a horseman?’

‘Better than that, sir,’ Docking said. ‘He’s a friend of the Risings. So like that, sir, he could have borrowed a horse, and the Risings wouldn’t have let on to us.’