Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (6 page)

‘What is it?’

Miss Morrison produced a piece of paper from her handbag but appeared reluctant to hand it over. ‘I’m very sorry. It’s evidence. I should have told you about it earlier. In fact I should have given it to the police but it’s private. I hope I won’t get into trouble.’

‘What is it?’

‘A letter; or rather a note . . .’

‘To you?’

‘Yes. It’s addressed to me. From Mr Staunton.’

‘May I see it?’

‘Yes. But if you could just read it and give it back I would be very grateful. It’s rather upsetting.’

‘I see . . .’ Sidney took the note. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Mr Staunton left it on my desk. It’s very short. But it leaves you in no doubt as to what must have happened.’

‘Are you sure you won’t come in?’

‘I’d rather not if you don’t mind.’

Sidney stood in the doorway and began to read:

A,

I can’t tell you how sorry I am that it has come to this. I know you will find it upsetting and I wish there was something I could do to make things right. I can’t go on any more. I’m sorry – so sorry. You know how hard it has been and how impossible it is to continue.

Forgive me

S

It had begun to rain again, and it was absurd that they were both still standing in the doorway of the vicarage, but Stephen Staunton’s secretary remained in righteous defiance.

‘I can see how upsetting this must be, Miss Morrison, but it would have been helpful if you had shown this to the police. I notice that he refers to you by your initial: A. Was that his usual practice?’

‘We both used to initial everything to show that we had read things. He’d sign a single “S” for me and a double “S” for Mr Morton’s papers – that is, until Mr Morton made a joke of it. They did not get on as well as they once had . . .’

‘And “A”?’

‘My name is Annabel, Canon Chambers.’

She waited for Sidney to return the note. This he did not do.

‘Miss Morrison, there are some unusual features about your employer’s death in which the police have become interested.’

Sidney knew that he was exaggerating Inspector Keating’s level of concern but decided that it was the only way in which Miss Morrison would grant the request he was about to make.

‘Are there?’ Miss Morrison looked shocked. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t think it is anything to worry about but I very much hope that you will allow me to keep this note so that I can show it, in confidence, to my friend Inspector Keating in order to set his mind at rest. As soon as I have done so, then I will return it. May I have your permission to do this? I can assure you that the information would remain confidential.’

‘I won’t get into trouble, will I?

‘I think that is unlikely. The police are convinced Mr Staunton died by his own hand and this note appears to prove it.’

‘Appears? It states it quite clearly.’

‘Indeed it does,’ Sidney admitted. ‘And so I am sure that it will be returned to you shortly. The only strange thing is why it has come to light now.’

‘I explained. It is private. I was upset. And it is mine. Meant only for me.’

Sidney realised that he would have to give Inspector Keating the note and accept the reality of what had happened. All that he had been doing was to complicate a straightforward case and arouse doubt. He should never have listened to Pamela Morton’s suspicions or been railroaded by her charm. Clearly the pressure of the infidelity had been too much for Stephen Staunton and he had taken the only escape route that he could find.

And yet, for reasons he could not quite fathom, Sidney’s suspicions would not abate. Why, for example, would Stephen Staunton leave a note for his secretary but not for his wife? What made Miss Morrison so hesitant to provide the police with information? And who had replaced the whiskey in the office?

Annabel Morrison looked him in the eye. ‘Please return the note as soon as you can.’

‘Of course.’

‘I hope you can understand how distressing this has been, Canon Chambers . . .’

‘I can, Miss Morrison. It has been distressing for everyone.’

‘I am glad you understand that. Good day, Canon Chambers.’

Sidney closed his front door and made his way back into the hall. He was still holding the note. He looked down but could not focus on the words. And then, unbidden, he imagined Stephen Staunton’s widow, Hildegard, sitting alone with her porcelain figures, due to receive Christmas cards from people who did not yet know that her husband was dead.

The following Sunday, having attended the last, and the shortest, Communion service before lunch, Pamela Morton knocked on the vicarage door. She was dressed in a dark navy coat with a wide-brimmed saucer hat that looked extraordinarily formal, even for church. She informed Sidney that she would take a very small whisky but could not stay long. She was expected for lunch at Peterhouse. A driver was waiting.

Once she had sat down her impatience was revealed. ‘I am rather disappointed in you, Canon Chambers,’ she began, her voice altogether more strident than Sidney had remembered. ‘I was hoping that you might have something for me by now. Have you found anything at all?’

‘A little,’ Sidney answered. Despite the imperious charms of his guest, his attitude to her plight had cooled since his meeting with Hildegard Staunton. If any one person involved in this sorry business required his time and sympathy it was surely the widow rather than the mistress.

‘Then what have you discovered?’ Pamela asked.

‘I am afraid that, despite my endeavours, your suspicions of foul play are going to be difficult to prove. Stephen Staunton left a note.’

‘Do you have it?’

‘I do.’

‘Can I see it?’

Sidney crossed over to his desk and handed the piece of paper to the dead man’s mistress. He knew that this was a breach of Miss Morrison’s privacy and that he should have taken the evidence straight to the police as he had promised but he wanted to see what Pamela Morton had to say.

She was less interested than he had hoped. In fact she was unimpressed. ‘No date, I see.’

Sidney was almost irritated by her dismissal of the only fact he had uncovered. ‘It is Stephen Staunton’s handwriting, is it not?’

‘It is . . .’

‘You hesitate to accept it as genuine.’

Pamela Morton was thinking. ‘His secretary could just as well have written it. She certainly knew how to forge his signature.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Stephen told me. It was a tacit agreement between them. He let her go home early on Wednesday afternoons – I think she saw her mother – and then, on other days, if he had to leave before she had finished his letters, he would trust her to read them through and dash off his signature. It gave him more time to see me, he said, and then he could get home sooner without arousing the suspicions of his frumpy wife.’

‘Do you think she is frumpy?’

‘I wouldn’t call her stylish. And no one would say she was thin.’

Sidney suddenly felt very sad. There was no need for Pamela Morton to talk like this. He had been moved and haunted by his visit to Stephen Staunton’s widow and he had kept remembering it: her poised profile as she looked out of a window; the way that she would stop in the middle of a sentence as if she had suddenly remembered something else; the fact that she turned to Bach for consolation. He was upset that Pamela Morton could be so dismissive.

‘You don’t seem to care for the other women in Mr Staunton’s life?’ he asked.

‘Why should I care for them? They did not make him happy. In fact, they contributed to his misery . . .’

‘I am not sure Miss Morrison could be considered guilty of that . . .’

‘She is an irrelevance, Canon Chambers.’

‘Although she seems to know rather a lot about her employer. She knew where he went and she certainly made excuses for him when he was in places where, perhaps, he should not have been. Are you sure that your relationship with him was a secret?’

‘I don’t think little Miss Moribund knew a thing. There was only my friend Helen in London. The odd “seen-it-all-before” barman might have guessed but no one else.’

‘And you are convinced that your husband did not have his suspicions?’

‘I’m not stupid, Canon Chambers. I know how to keep secrets. Have you heard of Tupperware?’

Sidney was distracted by this sudden change of tack. Something Mrs Maguire had once said when she replenished the larder came back to him. ‘Don’t they have those American-style parties for housewives?’

‘It’s not the parties I’m interested in. They’re plastic boxes that keep food fresh and separate. No cross-contamination. Nothing gets in; nothing comes out.’

‘And so you “Tupperware” your life?’

‘That’s right, Canon Chambers. I keep things separate. It’s like making meringues . . .’

Sidney understood the allusion but was not sure that dividing the white of an egg from its yolk was on a par with adultery.

‘You have to keep things fresh, Sidney,’ Pamela continued with her egg-bound metaphor, ‘and discrete. Both discrete and discreet if you know what I mean. Sometimes people are not aware of the difference between the words so I think it’s safer to do both. That way no one is hurt.’

Sidney could not remember allowing Pamela Morton to call him by his Christian name but was too surprised by her way of looking at human behaviour to comment. He decided to challenge her. ‘There is a flaw . . . of course.’

‘Which is?’

‘Well, if there are two of you then you both have to be equally diligent about your Tupperware, or, indeed, your egg whites. The slightest bit of yolk . . .’

‘That’s true. But Stephen was very careful. Do you know about the private diary?’

‘His secretary mentioned it.’

‘Well, he certainly made sure
she
never saw it. He kept it in his jacket pocket. That was the one that could tell you what was really going on.’

‘But his secretary kept an office diary . . .’

‘That was for show. What he really thought and what he really got up to was in the private notebook. Miss Morrison did not know him as well as she thought she did.’

‘I am not so sure about that. But I am surprised that you do not appear to accept this note as being genuine.’

Pamela Morton hesitated. ‘Have you shown it to the police?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But you will.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then I hope you will be appropriately sceptical.’

‘I haven’t decided what I think,’ Sidney replied, but knew that he would have to see Stephen Staunton’s widow once more.

It was always a difficult matter for a vicar to decide when to call in on his parishioners. The traditional hours were between three and five, before Evensong and the preparation either of high tea or dinner; but clearly those hours were unsuitable for people in employment and Sidney knew that Hildegard Staunton sometimes taught piano to private pupils after school. He therefore decided to risk a visit at six-thirty, making the assumption that she would be at home and unlikely to be either dining or entertaining. This proved correct.

Josef Locke’s ‘I’ll take you home again, Kathleen’ was playing on the wireless when he arrived. Hildegard switched it off and offered him tea.

His hostess was wearing the same green housecoat and appeared nervous; embarrassed even. ‘I am sorry I was in a dream when you last came. It was unfortunate. I could speak to people after the funeral because it was soon and I knew that I had to. Then afterwards . . . it was the shock, I think.’

‘I did not think that you were in a dream.’

‘I am sure I was rude. And sometimes, when I am sad, my English disappears. Do you speak any German?’

‘
Nur ein wenig . . . Können Sie mir den Weg zur nächsten Stadt zeigen
?
’

Hildegard laughed.

‘From the war, you understand.
Sie sind eine sehr anziehende junge Dame. Spielen Sie Fußball
?
’

‘No, Canon Chambers I do not play football.
Würden Sie gerne tanzen
?
’

‘
Ach, ich bin kein Tänzer.
I am afraid I am not a dancer.’

‘
Was für eine Schande.
Did you find out about the will?’ she asked.

‘I am afraid that there doesn’t seem to be one. But as his wife, you will no doubt be the beneficiary. This house, his savings . . .’

‘I am afraid there are more likely to be debts. No doubt Miss Morrison will tell me.’

‘I take it that you are not too fond of Miss Morrison.’

‘I didn’t see her enough to have an opinion. I think she thought that she was more responsible for my husband’s well-being than I was myself. I did not mind too much. I have never found jealousy helpful . . .’