The Belting Inheritance (9 page)

“Yes, he did.”

“And there were quarrels? Did he on one occasion tell you to keep away from Miss Clay or there would be trouble?” The witness agreed that there had been something like that. He denied that he had said he would see Miss Clay as often as he liked, and that she naturally preferred a man in uniform to a civilian. He also denied that he had seen Sullivan on the night of 3rd June. That had been the last night on leave of his brother, Sergeant Wainwright, and they had spent it at home. Sergeant Wainwright had gone abroad on D-Day, and had since been reported missing, believed killed. Evidence was given by Lady Wainwright, another brother Mr S Wainwright, and domestics, to the effect that Flt.-Lieut. Wainwright had spent the evening at home.

The Coroner said that they might have their suspicions, but suspicion was not proof. They were bound to ask, “Was it foul play?”, but the medical evidence did not greatly help them. They must not be swayed by gossip.

The jury brought in a verdict that Sullivan had died of drowning, but that there was not sufficient evidence to show whether or not this was accidental.

Just before I had finished reading, I became aware that my name was being called, but my absorption was too great to permit me to reply. Peterson’s head appeared at the door. Her sergeant-major’s eye glared at me.

“Didn’t you hear me calling, Mr Christopher? Her ladyship wants you. Important. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

I followed her down the stairs and along to Lady W’s room. Her back was rigid, her face grim. I might have been a man on a charge led in to the commanding officer, and it was difficult when following her not to adopt a hands-in-pocket slouch in reaction. At the door I could not resist saying, “I can find my way in.”

“She’s very ill.” She glared at me, and turned away.

When I got inside I saw with surprise that they were all there. Stephen and Clarissa sat very close to each other, he white and thin, she brick-red and solid so that I was put in mind of Jack Sprat and his wife. Miles sat picking his nose, which was a bad habit of his when nervous, and David was apart from the others with one leg nonchalantly crossed over the other knee in what I have often been told is the characteristic attitude of an English gentleman, although from my observation this is far from invariably true.

But at first I had no eyes for anybody but Lady W. She was propped up against pillows, and she looked so frail that I had the impression that she had no power to maintain herself, and that if the pillows were removed she would simply sink back in the bed. She had in one hand a small handkerchief with which she kept dabbing at her face as if it were damp, although it looked as dry and brittle as brandysnap. Her voice was thin but clear.

My face must have shown something of what I felt, for she spoke to me. “Christopher. Here at last. Don’t look like that, boy, it’s that damned doctor. He takes it out of me. I don’t know why I pay him to come, the very sight of him makes
me feel worse. I wanted to get you all together.” The handkerchief patted her face. “I’ve sent for Humphries.”

Somebody exhaled a deep breath. Humphries was the family solicitor.

“David coming back makes a difference. You all understand that, don’t you?”

She looked from one face to another, and none of them said anything. It seemed to me inexplicable. I see now that they were all afraid of saying they believed David to be an impostor, because if they did so Lady W might in her present state of mind cut them out of her new will. But although I was subconsciously aware of this, my primary feeling was indignation. Why couldn’t they say what they thought. I found myself saying it for them.

“Uncle Miles and Uncle Stephen don’t believe he is David.” Defiantly I added, “I’m not sure I believe it either.”

“And since you never met him your opinion is very much worth having.” Her dark eyes blazed at me for a moment, her finger pointed. “Do you think I wouldn’t know him?”

“Don’t excite yourself, Mamma,” Stephen said, and I saw him nudge Clarissa, who got up immediately, lurched towards the bed on her bow legs and gave powerful pats to the pillows. My remark was not followed up. I did not look at Stephen and Miles, I felt so ashamed of them. Lady W went on.

“I wanted you all to know this, I don’t want anything hole and corner. There must be changes. But I shan’t forget any of my children. I count you as one of them, Christopher.” I muttered something. “But you must understand that David coming back makes a difference.”

“I should have come before.” He turned away from her as he said it, and I was the only one able to see the look of misery on his face.

“Stay with me a little while.” She put out her hand to him, and it was a signal for the rest of us to go.

The door had hardly closed behind us when Stenhen turned on me. “Why did you say that, what are you trying to do?”

“If you won’t say anything – ”

“We can speak for ourselves, thank you,” Clarissa bayed. “And I can assure you we shall, in our own time.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked Uncle Miles.

He shook his head at me and scratched his chin. “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

I was hot with anger at the sneakish way they conspired, at the sheer wretched pettiness of them. “Anyway, I’ve found out a good deal of what you’re trying to hide.”

Stephen tugged at his collar, and then led the way into the drawing-room. There he said: “Say what you mean.”

I told them what I had read in the paper. Stephen said: “If it were David, do you think he would have come back?”

“Because of the case?”

“Because the police knew we were telling lies. And the police knew. Greensword was polite enough, but that man Arbuthnot – ”

“You weren’t here,” I said to Uncle Miles.

“No. I was up in Catterick, entertaining the licentious soldiery.”

“I was here,” Clarissa said unexpectedly. “There was a great song and dance. Stephen and I were engaged to be married. My father wanted me to break it off.”

Stephen gave her a frozen grin that showed his teeth, and I was reminded of what Betty Urquhart had said. “Why don’t you get in touch wth the dentist who did David’s teeth? If
he had a record of fillings, that would be as good as a fingerprint, wouldn’t it?”

Stephen transferred the grin to me. “Oddly enough that had occurred to us. You aren’t the only one with brains here, even if you have won a history scholarship. Our dentist was a man named Faber. He was up in London, not down here. He was killed in a flying bomb raid, and his records were wiped out too.”

“Did you know Sullivan?”

“He was always slapping people on the back and making bad jokes. ‘You can’t do that there ’ere,’ have you heard that phrase?” I shook my head. “It was used a great deal in the war by people like Sullivan. He came up here once or twice. He was a partner with Hugh in an estate agents’ business.”

“And Margaret Clay?”

“Sullivan’s girl friend?” That was Clarissa. “I don’t know what happened to her, do you, Stephen?”

“I think there’s more to be found out about Sullivan,” I said. “I shan’t be in to lunch.”

“Where are you going?”

“Folkestone.” I went up to the ottic, picked up the
Kent Record
and dashed down the stairs. On the way I passed David, coming along the corridor from Lady W’s room. He looked like a man released from prison.

Lunch with Mr Ulfheim

At this time I had never been out of England, though I had a passport obtained three yeers earlier when Uncle Miles had proposed that we should go together on a skiing holiday in Austria, a project which had to be abandoned when he broke his leg while practising on the slopes of an indoor skiing school. I had never gone on a summer holiday as such, for Lady W regarded life at Belting as holiday enough for anybody. In those days Folkestone seemed to me a fascinating place, and I still regard it as the second best of the south coast seaside resorts. The best is Brighton, and if Dr Johnson were alive today no doubt he would say that a man who is tired of Brighton is tired of life, for Brighton contains all that London has to offer and gives as a bonus the pleasures of the sea and of those fingers sticking into it, the piers.

But to come back to Folkestone. I loved the little zig-zag paths that went down to the lower level from which one might approach the sea, the water-drawn lift cage in which for twopence (it costs more now) one might go down or of course up, for the cars work in couples, to the deliciously ugly red brick Victorian lifthouse, the small shops around the harbour and the harbour itself, the rows of solid hotels that stand back from the front, with their formidable promise of Edwardian meals, big bedrooms with gigantic wardrobes in them, battles for the bathroom. I should add that my vision of the hotels was imaginary, for I had not been inside any of them, and have never visited them yet.

When I went along to the
Kent Record
office it was shut, so I went back to the front, walked down the zig-zag and along to the small fun fair that opens during the summer. Here I rode on the dodgems, and went in a thing called the “Loop-de-Loop” which made me feel slightly sick. The sickness passed away when I ate some candy floss, and I strolled round looking at the side shows. Professor Bump the phrenologist, who had once read my bumps and predicted, after a few shrewd preliminary questions, that I should be either a famous writer or a professional cricketer, was talking to Peter Portland, who ran the Kwik Fire Fotographic Service.

“Just ups and offs without so much as a by your leave,” Peter said. “I mean, it just isn’t right.”

“It’s not professional conduct,” the Professor agreed, picking his teeth gloomily.

I knew them both, and asked what they were talking about. The Professor indicated the stall that stood between them. It said in large letters MONSIEUR MAGIQUE, and in smaller ones: “Fresh From France. Konjuring for the Kiddies. See the Great Disappearing Act and say Oh la la with Monsieur Magique.”

“What’s wrong then?”

“What’s wrong? Just that he’s
cleared off,
that’s all,” Peter said indignantly. “Engaged for three weeks, and then says he’s not doing
enough business.
”

“And he’s packing ’em in, mind you, packing ’em in.” That was the Professor. “Especially the kiddies.”

“I don’t see why it matters to you.”

It was a rash remark. Peter puffed out his cheeks. “Do you think that we want a blank space between us, something that’s
closed down?
It’s bad, it puts people off.”

The Professor threw away his tooth-pick. “I’m writing to the Entertainments Department at the Town ’All. They can get someone else ’ere, someone from this side of the Channel too, thank you.”

I left them bemoaning the low ethical standards prevailing in their profession, and took the water lift back to the top. This time the office, which was just off the High Street, was open. When I gave my name and asked whether I could look at the file for 1944 I was taken past the flap barrier of
the counter into a small office which contained a desk, a typewriter, and a great many papers and files. The girl behind the desk took off her horn-rimmed spectacles to look at me, and then put them on again.

“If you like to clear some of the junk off that chair you can sit down.” I did so. “And what can we do for you, Mr Barrington?”

I told her what I wanted, and she levelled on me a long appraising gaze. Then she said, “The file for 1944 is on the second shelf above your head. Help yourself.”

The file was bulky, and it was dusty. When I asked her for a duster she looked at me as though I were mad, and then spoke to the boy outside, who produced some kind of rag. I dusted off the file, found June, 1944, and the issue that recorded Sullivan’s disappearance, and went on from there. I don’t know what I had expected, but the result was sparse. There were a few lines about the disappearance (“Estate Agent Vanishes”), then next week a statement that the police were following up clues and that Sullivan was believed to have had a quarrel on the night of his disappearance, then the issue I had seen, and then stories in the following two weeks, one saying that the dead man’s brother George Sullivan was not satisfied with the verdict, and the next saying that the firm of Sullivan and Wainwright was closing down. And that seemed to be all. I closed the file.

“Did you find what you wanted?” It was the girl again, looking at me with a direct gaze from dark blue eyes. “What
do
you want exactly, Mr Barrington?”

I saw no reason to beat about the bush. “I’m trying to find out something about an old murder case. It was in 1944, and – ”

She took off the glasses. “I thought you were. Shouldn’t you ask me, then? I’m Elaine Sullivan.”

“You’re not his daughter?”

“Ted Sullivan wasn’t married.” Of course I had known that. “I’m George Sullivan’s daughter.”

“You know all about it, then.”

“I doubt if anyone knows all about it, not even the police. But I know something. I know who you are, too.”

“You do?”

“A cousin of mine is at school with you,” she said, and I remembered the Sullivan who was a member of the Æsthetes’ Group. Had he once said he had relatives in Folkestone? I believed he had. But she had not stopped talking. “And anyway the Sullivans know all about the Wainwrights, or they used to. Since my father died a couple of years ago and my sister got married and went to live in Stoke, there’s nobody to take an interest. I know about your murder too, the odd-job man, isn’t it? And someone said David Wainwright had come back, is that right?” I hesitated. “You’re like the rest of them.”

“How do you mean?”

In savage mockery she said, “This is one of the lower orders, can I trust her with the secrets of the gentry, would it be proper? Though
you’re
not the gentry, from what I hear.”

“No, I’m not.” Perhaps I coloured, I don’t know. “I’m a poor relation, if that’s the way you want to put it. I don’t see why you’ve got such a chip on your shoulder about it.”

“A chip on my shoulder.” She stared at me through the born-rims. “I hate the bloody Wainwrights. That ghastly old snob and her horrible sons, I hate them all.”

It had become clear to me in the last couple of days that my view of the Wainwright family was not shared by most of the other people who knew them. The fact that this discovery had come to me as a shock shows how sharply the imagination is limited by the physical world surrounding it. At Belting Lady W’s word was law, servants were respectful, there was nobody to contradict Stephen when he deplored the state of the country or Clarissa when she lamented the impossibility of getting a decent kennel maid. I had accepted all this, and in my ignorance had assumed that everybody else would accept it too. I was amazed to hear Lady W called a snob, just as I had been astounded when Betty Urquhart said she devoured her family. I dare say the shocks were salutary, but they were far from pleasant.

In a milder tone she said, “The Sullivans have got no reason to love the Wainwrights. Those precious brothers wrecked Ted’s life between them, and my father’s too.”

“Which brothers?”

“Hugh and David.” She took the glasses off, put them on the table in front of her. “Hugh ruined Ted, David killed him, and then the family got my father sacked from his job.”

I gaped at her. “I don’t believe it.”

“Do you want to hear about it, or is the Wainwright feeling too strong for you to listen?” What could I do but listen, when she said that? “Let’s begin with Uncle Ted. He was a commercial traveller, sold men’s clothing, not doing too badly for himself by any means, when he met Hugh and David Wainwright at Folkestone races. I remember he came back full of it – he was single, and he lodged with us when he wasn’t on the road – saying how decent they were, not a bit toffee-nosed as you might expect. Then he took them to a few betting clubs he knew, and so on, and a couple of weeks later he brought them back home to supper, and told us about this idea they had of starting a business together. But do you know what happened before that? He’d lent Hugh Wainwright two hundred pounds to settle some debt of his brother’s.”

So that was where the money had come from. “Did he get it back?”

“In a way,” she said reluctantly. “Hugh was supposed to put two hundred extra into the business. But before we get on to that I’d like to make you see things the way they were, though I don’t know if I can. My father worked as a garage mechanic, this was before the war, you understand, and he thought himself lucky to have a job. There was nothing wrong with the house we lived in, it was clean and decent and it even had a bathroom, but it was a working-class house, you understand what I mean. Uncle Ted had money in the bank, but that two hundred must have made a hole in it. He lent the money just because one of the Wainwrights asked him, are you beginning to understand? And then you’ve never seen such a hullabalbo as my mother made when she learned they were coming. We ate in the front room instead of the kitchen, she cooked a piece of beef and we usually only had a joint at weekends, and Uncle Ted came in with a dozen bottles of beer. I was only a kid at the time, of course, and I said to my mother ‘It’s like Christmas.’ I can tell you I was excited. And then they came.”

“Hugh and David?”

“That’s right. I stayed up to supper and saw them.” Reluctantly again, she said, “They were very nice. Mother said afterwards ‘I must say they’ve got no side about them, – it’s as though they were like ourselves,’ and Uncle Ted – said, ‘What did I tell you, they’re real gentlemen, we’re going to make a fortune.’ Only my father was against it and how right he was.”

“What were they like, Hugh and David?” I had very strongly now the sense that I had learned only partial truths about them, that there was something more to be found out, and that this something more might be important.

“They didn’t look alike, Hugh was dark and David fair, and David was very handsome. Hugh was the talker, he was always talking and laughing as if everything was a tremendous joke, and David was different, he had a very gentle face, still looked like a boy. Mother said afterwards that he looked so shy and delicate it was natural for any woman to want to look after him.” She said fiercely, “She didn’t know then that he was going to kill Uncle Ted.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Well, they started this business, Uncle Ted and Hugh. Uncle Ted and father both put all their savings into it – Father only did it because Uncle Ted made such a song and dance – and Hugh put up money too, I suppose it came from his mother, and it was supposed to include the money he owed Uncle Ted. The firm was called Wainwright and Sullivan, estate agents, and the idea was that with Uncle Ted’s connections and the prestige of the Wainwright name, they couldn’t lose. But not long after they got properly started the war came, and the bottom dropped out of the house market, and then Hugh went into the army and Uncle Ted had to run the firm on his own. Then he met Margaret Clay.”

“What was she like?”

“If you ask me she was just a tart. No, that’s wrong.” She played with the glasses on the desk, put them on again. “She was out for a good time, I suppose, like a lot of girls during the war, and she took in Uncle Ted, because he thought she was different. In a way he was like what you’d expect a commercial traveller to be, full of jokes and catch phrases, but in other ways he was – innocent, I suppose you’d call it. He volunteered for service when the war began, but he had something wrong with his heart and they wouldn’t take him. Afterwards he used to go round saying, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ Do you remember people saying that?” I shook my head. “Or he’d say, ‘Yes, we have no bananas,’ or when things were going wrong he would say, ‘We must just soldier on,’ and march round the room as though a band were playing. Oh, I can see that Wainwright look on your face, but there was nothing wrong with Uncle Ted, I loved him. Nothing wrong, except that he trusted the Wainwrights. And that he fell for Margaret Clay. I was listening behind the door when he told my father he was going to marry her, and my father – he was working in a factory, not called up – told him not to be a bloody fool. But he got engaged, just the same. That was in 1944, just before Hugh and David both came home on leave.”

“And then?”

“I didn’t see either of them, but one night Hugh came to the house when my parents were out, and I heard him having a terrific row with Uncle Ted. That must have been over David. And another night there was a real show-down, Margaret came back with Uncle Ted and David, and the three of them had it out together. I heard her say she wasn’t married yet, and she’d go out with anyone she liked. Uncle Ted said he’d do for David if he found him with her again. Afterwards my father said to my mother, ‘What d’you expect from a Wainwright but lying and cheating?’ That was a couple of days before Uncle Ted was killed.”

“What about the night he died?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that, except what my father always said. That they lied themselves silly in the witness box. He said the police thought so too. Hugh had been posted missing by then, but Lady Wainwright and Stephen and David went into the witness box and swore they’d all spent the evening in the house, David had never gone out. They don’t mind lying when it’s a matter of saving their skins.”

“What do you think happened?”

“David went out and met Uncle Ted, they had another row, and he killed him. That’s what happened.” She looked at the clock and said abruptly, “I shouldn’t say no if you asked me to lunch.”