Sweet Poison (31 page)

‘I really don’t know if I believe you myself,’ said Edward thinly. ‘I mean, it all sounds so melodramatic.’

‘Oh God, I thought I could convince you.’ He suddenly slumped back in his seat as if he were ready to give up.

‘Look here, Gordon, brace up. I don’t doubt that you are genuinely at the end of your tether. I can see too that you are badly frightened. You’ve got yourself in one hell of a hole but I think you are rather exaggerating what these Triad people can do.’

‘Oh Christ, Corinth. You’ve got to believe me. These aren’t your normal East End gangsters. I’ve dealt with them before. These are . . . animals. I went through the war, Corinth, and I tell you I was never once as scared in the trenches as I am now.’

‘See here,’ said Edward, suddenly decisive, ‘I’ll ring Inspector Pride now and say we are going round to the Yard. Can you get that fat boy of yours at the door to get us a cab while I make the call?’

‘Yes, and thanks, old man, I mean it: thanks a lot.’

Edward rang Pride, who was not at the Yard but at home in bed. Edward had a job getting the sergeant on duty to wake him up and he had to come over very aristocratic to make the man brave Inspector Pride’s justifiable wrath at being bothered so late at night – it was after eleven. He heard the sergeant on the other line obviously being abused by the Inspector before Pride was made to understand that Lord Edward Corinth wanted to convey into his hands the elusive Captain Gordon. The sergeant, when he had put down the telephone, came back to Edward to tell him that Inspector Pride would meet him at Scotland Yard in forty-five minutes – the time it would take him to dress and drive over from leafy Wimbledon where he lived in suburban comfort. When Edward had put down the telephone receiver he went to look for Gordon, who had gone upstairs to see about the taxi, and bumped into Amy.

‘I saw you leave the table and I guessed something had happened,’ she said breathlessly.

‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘Captain Gordon is here and he wants me to go with him to Scotland Yard. By the way, he says there are some very nasty people in this dope business and even though you are not involved, someone may have seen you with me. So please, I want you to be very careful. In fact it might be better if you came with me to Scotland Yard, and then we can decide if it is safe for you to be at home by yourself. If we are to believe the good Captain there are some violent Chinese gentlemen creating mayhem around here and I don’t want to get you mixed up in it.’

Edward’s big fear was that she already was mixed up in it by association with the Cocoanut Grove but he didn’t want to frighten her. By this time they had reached the door of the club. It was a warm night and the sky was very clear. It was getting on for midnight – the city was silent except for the occasional squawk of a taxi in Regent Street. The noise of the traffic had eased. There was no sign of Caspar, the club ‘bouncer’, but Gordon was waving down a taxi. The cab, which had begun to slow, suddenly picked up speed. Gordon stood in the middle of the street like a rabbit hypnotized by the cab’s headlights. Edward, with a cry of alarm, sprinted toward him, a black, stationary figure outlined in the yellow glow of the headlamps. He launched himself at the man and the two of them rolled into the gutter. The cab swept past them, its mudguard grazing Edward’s shins. Captain Gordon’s story had been substantiated in the most convincing way. At least this time, Edward thought as he hugged the man to him like a mother with her baby, I have been able to prevent a death.

As he gathered his wits he heard a very shaken Amy Pageant saying, ‘For God’s sake, Edward. Are you all right?’ Then she was there helping him to his feet. Before turning to see to Gordon, who still lay where he had fallen, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her, her scent filling him with a determination never to release her.

15

Thursday Morning

Verity telephoned Edward at a frighteningly early hour to berate him for going off to the Cocoanut Grove the previous evening without her. She would have liked to accuse him of . . . of something . . . she wasn’t sure what exactly, for taking Amy out to dinner but, on reflection, she did not think she dared tell him whom he could and could not entertain. When she heard how he had been knocked down and almost killed by a taxi and ended up in a peculiarly noisome gutter, her wrath left her and she felt positively cheerful. Despite Edward begging her to leave him alone to lick his wounds, she jumped in a taxi and came straight round to his rooms. Fenton’s haughty demeanour as he opened the door of the apartment to Verity showed what he thought of his master permitting an unmarried girl to minister to his hurts while he was still in his dressing-gown and silk pyjamas.

‘Very nice,’ said Verity, giving his nightwear a steady stare. She poked him in the ribs and he groaned noisily. ‘That will teach you to “pursue your inquiries” without a chaperone,’ she said, smugly.

Edward groaned again even more piteously. He was a mass of bruises and he wanted to be cherished, not told his discomfort was all his own fault. In fact, he thought Verity might congratulate him or at least commiserate with him but she seemed intent on riling him. He had no idea why. However, by the time Fenton appeared with his breakfast on a silver tray he was beginning to feel less like tenderized steak and was able to talk.

‘You can imagine what Inspector Pride said when I presented myself at Scotland Yard looking as if I had been in a particularly nasty brawl – and Captain Gordon was, if anything, looking rather worse. Here, do you want to see my bruises?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Verity with a theatrical shudder, ‘it might put me off your breakfast.’ She buttered a piece of toast from the plate on his tray and drowned it in Oxford marmalade. ‘It must be so nice to be cared for by someone like Fenton who will bring you china tea and soft-boiled eggs in bed.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Why can’t women have valets?’

‘Ladies may have ladies’ maids, I suppose,’ Edward replied, seizing his cup of coffee before Verity could drink it.

‘Am I a lady?’ Verity mused. ‘I wonder . . . I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to turn myself into a woman comrade but I may have failed. I shall ask Fenton.’

‘No, please don’t,’ said Edward hastily.

‘But seriously, how could you go off detecting without me – or was it just spooning over Amy? I expect it was, dash it. Fenton was very evasive when I gave him the third degree yesterday. Anyway, what did you discover?’

‘Ah, well, nothing, I suppose . . . nothing we did not know before, I mean.’

‘You spent the evening “meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow”,’ said Verity, who had read
Pride and Prejudice
at school and had immediately identified with Elizabeth Bennet.

Edward blushed. ‘Ah, I see Lord Edward “is not to be laughed at”,’ Verity added, getting up from her perch on the bed and going over to the window. She wished she did not feel interested in Amy Pageant.

‘Gordon was in a pretty bad way when we got him to the Yard,’ Edward repeated, hoping thereby to draw attention to his life-saving activities and choosing to ignore Verity’s jibes.

‘I don’t feel sorry for Gordon,’ said Verity scornfully. ‘Why feel sorry for a dope-pedlar?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Edward weakly. ‘I just feel he may have been put in a difficult position, that’s all.’

‘For pity’s sake, stop being saintlike and wish someone ill for once,’ said Verity crossly. ‘All this feeling sorry for people who ought to be in gaol is getting on my nerves. The inquest is tomorrow, isn’t it?’

‘General Craig’s? Yes, tomorrow. I don’t know when the inquest will be on Larmore – or Lomax for that matter. Never having attended an inquest in my life, it seems my diary is now to have “inquest” written on every page. Perhaps I won’t have to appear at Larmore’s. Pride couldn’t tell me. I did say though that I would talk to Celia Larmore. Pride seemed to think I ought.’

‘Well,’ said Verity, ‘we’ve still got a few more hours to try and come up with something.’

‘Prove he was murdered, you mean? I think it’s all too late. We’ve talked to everyone who might have killed him and it’s hardly surprising that none of them confessed.’

‘No, but two of them said the Bishop did it,’ said Verity triumphantly, taking the last slice of toast off Edward’s plate and covering it thickly with butter.

‘Yes,’ agreed Edward, ‘but I don’t seriously think that a bishop of the Church of England would murder a distinguished general at a duke’s dinner-party.’

‘Well, someone did,’ said Verity stubbornly, spearing a slice of peach with a fork.

‘Sorry,’ said Edward. ‘I thought you said you didn’t want any breakfast.’

‘I don’t,’ said Verity, grinning as well as she could with her mouth full. ‘There is one thing though – actually, it was David who suggested it.’ Edward’s face fell. ‘He said that if Craig was murdered, the reason probably lay in his past.’

‘I think David is right,’ Edward admitted. ‘I have been thinking along the same lines. I suggest, as soon as you have finished my breakfast,’ and he looked meaningfully at Verity as she shoved the last of the peach into her surprisingly large mouth, ‘we toddle along and have a word with Jeffries.’

‘General Craig’s valet?’

‘Yes, as far as I know he is still staying at the General’s house. He’s going to go and live with his mother in Brighton or somewhere but I am sure he would not go before the funeral.’

‘Who’s organizing all that side of things?’

‘There’s this distant cousin – a lawyer, I think.’ He read Verity’s mind. ‘He’s the General’s only living relative and will inherit what there is to inherit but he hardly knew the General and wasn’t at the dinner so he’s not a suspect, at least I don’t see how he can be.’

‘No, you are right, of course,’ said Verity, looking round his breakfast tray to make sure she had not missed anything.

‘Still, I think we should speak to Jeffries. He’s rather a depressed-looking cove, don’t you know, but no fool. We probably ought to have thought of him before.’

‘Will it be all right for me to come?’ said Verity, unusually meekly. ‘I don’t seem to make a very good impression on valets. The Communist comes out in me, I am afraid.’

‘What? Oh, you mean Fenton! Don’t worry about him. His bark’s worse than his whatnot. He’ll love you one day.’

‘If I live so long,’ muttered Verity to herself.

‘Of course you must come, and we won’t telephone and make an appointment either. Let’s take him unawares, “sleeping in his orchard”.’

‘What orchard?’ said Verity, who had not taken to Shakespeare with the same enthusiasm she had for Miss Austen.

In the taxi to Cadogan Square Edward said, a little shyly, ‘Will you come down with me tonight and stay at the castle? The inquest is at ten so it would be a bit of rush if you were going to come down by train in the morning.’

‘Oh, that’s very sweet of you,’ said Verity, genuinely touched, ‘but I don’t think I could. After . . . well, you know . . . getting into your brother’s house under false pretences and then writing that piece in the
Daily Worker
. . . I just couldn’t.’

‘No, I mean it. I’ve talked it over with Connie on the telephone and she insists. I won’t pretend Gerald looks on you as his favourite person but he’s not a fool and Connie says he realizes that you only did what any journalist would have done. You made no promises and therefore broke none.’

Verity was about to butt in but he raised his hand. ‘Before you say anything else I think it might be important that you are there for another reason. Bishop Haycraft and Lord Weaver are also going to make statements at the inquest and they are staying at the castle tonight. I thought it might be our last chance of straightening things out.’

Verity was pleased that Edward should have included her in the ‘we’ who were going to get things ‘straightened out’ so on impulse she leant across and kissed him on the cheek. ‘If you think it’s all right, then I will be glad to come,’ she said. ‘It’s just the Bishop and Weaver – no one else?’

‘No. Obviously Mrs Larmore is not coming, and I believe Blanche is probably going to stay with Hermione. Apparently she is not at all well. Haycraft is leaving his wife behind, quite sensibly. I’m afraid the inquest is going to be a grisly if brief affair. There will be lots of you around, I expect.’

Verity was puzzled for a moment as to what he meant, then she understood: ‘Oh, journalists?’

‘Yes, vultures at the feast.’

‘But why do you say it will be brief – the inquest?’

‘Well, unless we come up with something very dramatic the verdict will be accidental death.’

‘I see, and you don’t think we will come up with anything dramatic?’

‘I doubt it and, of course, you might argue that it is kinder to the General just to leave it at that. After all, if we were to prove he was murdered, what would it achieve? Nastiness all round and the General would be remembered not for what he did but for how he died.’

Verity, remembering her Communist principles, wanted to say she did not feel a warmongering imperialist had much to be proud of anyway, but the words stuck in her gullet. It seemed wrong, whatever David might say, to besmirch the old man’s memory.

‘You don’t mean that?’ she said instead. ‘Of course we must see justice done if we can. Everyone deserves justice even if most people don’t get it.’

‘“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder”?’

‘You are quoting again,’ Verity accused him.

‘Sorry! You started it. I don’t know why but Hamlet has been rather on my mind.’ He stroked his chin and repeated, ‘Don’t know why.’

At that moment the cab drew up outside 22 Cadogan Square and they got out. Edward paid the driver and then rang the bell. Nothing happened so he rang the bell again. He was just about to hammer on the door, thinking that the electric bell might not be working, when he heard a shuffling sound followed by a pulling of bolts. Then Jeffries’ head appeared round the door.

‘Lord Edward!’ exclaimed the man, opening the door wider. ‘I thought it might be newspaper people,’ he said gloomily. ‘They have tried everything to get in, even offered me money. As if I would ever . . .’ He paused. ‘And you, miss, are . . . ?’