The Incident at Fives Castle (An Angela Marchmont Mystery #5) (20 page)

‘You did enjoy it a little, didn’t you?’ he said, after they had gone some way.

‘Perhaps just a little,’ admitted Angela.

He let out a laugh, which swiftly turned into a groan, and they entered the castle as darkness began to fall.

All his years of experience as a broker of civilized political agreements had not prepared the Earl of Strathmerrick in any way for the situation in which he now found himself. Until that morning he had been a man upon whom life and fate smiled benignly: he was a respected member of the House of Lords, and one to whom everybody turned in times of need. He was spoken of as the real power behind the Government despite the fact that he made little contribution himself to policy. His wealth was immense, and his family life unexceptionable—his second daughter’s occasional escapades aside. Now, however, he found his painstakingly-constructed fortress tumbling about his ears. Not only had his prospective son-in-law turned out to be a traitor and a murderer (to the great detriment of the Earl’s domestic happiness and that of his family), but that same prospective son-in-law, in view of his position as a Member of Parliament, now looked set to bring down the entire Government (to the great detriment of the country as a whole). Faced with such a monstrous onslaught of misfortune, Lord Strathmerrick was quite at a loss to know what to do next. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked round the table at the faces of his English and American colleagues, some serious, some thoughtful. He cleared his throat and addressed Henry Jameson.

‘So you say there’s no doubt about it?’ he said, somewhat inadequately.

Henry glanced down at the sheaf of papers on the table before him and moved it an eighth of an inch to the right.

‘Well, he was carrying the documents all right,’ he said. ‘Or at least one set of them.’

Everyone stared at the little pile of papers.

‘May we have a look at them?’ said Aubrey Nash at last. ‘That’s why we’re here, after all.’

Henry glanced at the Foreign Secretary.

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Sandy Buchanan with a sigh. ‘Goodness knows, we’ve been to enough trouble to get them back. But don’t expect to understand them—as I said, they’re in code and they may not be the genuine article anyway.’

‘Then we still have no idea where the other copy is?’ said Aubrey.

‘No,’ said Henry, handing him the papers. ‘Burford won’t tell us. As a matter of fact, he claims he doesn’t know where they are.’

‘What?’ said the Earl.

‘Yes,’ said Henry thoughtfully. ‘It’s rather odd. He admits to having blackmailed Mrs. Buchanan, but says he knows nothing about what happened to the other copy of the documents.’

‘Do you mean he didn’t think to search Klausen’s body after he shot him?’ said Aubrey.

‘No,’ said Henry. ‘He says he didn’t shoot Klausen at all.’

There were one or two exclamations of surprise and disbelief.

‘But that’s nonsense,’ said Gabe Bradley. ‘He must have done it. Who else could have dumped the professor’s body in the chest?’

‘Oh, he did that all right,’ said Sandy Buchanan.

‘Then I don’t understand,’ said Aubrey. ‘Suppose you start at the beginning and tell us exactly what he
has
admitted to. Where have you put him, by the way?’

‘We’ve locked him in the bedroom next door to the one where we put Klausen,’ said Henry.

‘How is he?’ said Aubrey.

‘Somewhat battered. We’ve patched him up and made him as comfortable as possible. Young Freddy appears to have given him rather a pasting.’

‘Odd, that,’ said Lord Strathmerrick. ‘I shouldn’t have thought the fellow had it in him—he looks far too much of a milksop to me.’

‘Far from it,’ Gabe assured him. ‘It took two of us to pull him off. He was quite beside himself. I dare say I’d be the same if someone had just taken a chunk out of my ear.’

‘But going back to Burford,’ prompted Aubrey.

‘Go ahead, Jameson,’ said the Foreign Secretary.

‘Very well,’ said Henry. ‘Burford’s story is this: he never intended to get involved in the whole spying thing, but two or three years ago he met Lady Priscilla and they became engaged. At that time he was a lowly secretary to Beresford Ogilvy, but he had strong connections within the party and planned to stand for Parliament in a year or two once a safe seat could be found. He admits that when the engagement was first suggested, he—er—exaggerated the extent of his private wealth to Lord Strathmerrick, since he did not wish it to appear that he was a poor prospect for a son-in-law, even though at that time he would have been unable to support Lady Priscilla in the style to which she was accustomed. The deception did not worry him, since he was confident that once his ambitions had been realized, his fortunes would improve and they would be able to live very comfortably. However, not long after the engagement was announced, he became entangled in an unfortunate financial speculation and lost a large amount of money—almost everything he owned, in fact. As is the way of these things, he attempted to recover his losses by throwing good money after bad, and soon afterwards found himself in an even deeper hole than before and facing ruin.

‘Naturally, if Lord Strathmerrick were ever to find out about this, then he would certainly not allow the wedding to go ahead; moreover, there was no chance of Burford’s being able to stand for Parliament as a bankrupt. It looked very much as though all his ambitions were at an end. For some weeks he kept his troubles to himself, but one day he happened to be in company with Stephen Golovin, who had not yet come under suspicion for his spying activities, and accidentally mentioned that he had money difficulties, although he did not confess their extent. Golovin was sympathetic and they became friends—or so Burford believed. Of course, it is more likely that this was a calculated move on the part of Golovin, who presumably wanted to recruit more people to his cause.

‘One day Golovin took Burford aside and said he knew of a way in which Burford could pay off his debts with very little effort. According to Burford, he had that very morning received a final demand for payment from one of his creditors, and so was in a somewhat desperate state of mind. He had only a week in which to find the money, or all would be revealed and his ambitions and his engagement would be at an end. Naturally, therefore, he jumped at the opportunity. It was very easy: all he had to do was to make a copy of some minutes to a confidential meeting that was due to take place between the Home Secretary and his American counterpart that day, and hand it to Golovin. He did so, and the next day received through the post an anonymous letter containing a cheque for almost half the sum of his debts.

‘A month or so later, he was again approached by Golovin and asked if he would like to make some more money. Another creditor had begun to press for payment, so Burford said yes. This time the documents related to a secret meeting about overland trade routes on the Continent. Again, he received in return an anonymous letter containing a cheque.

‘After two or three more incidents of this kind, Burford was back on a sound footing financially and had no need to hand over any more information in return for payment, so the next time Golovin asked for his help he declined. Shortly afterwards, Golovin was arrested and sent to prison. As we all know, the ensuing scandal ended in Ogilvy’s resignation as Home Secretary and the end of his career in Parliament. Burford then stood for election in Ogilvy’s seat and won. With Golovin safe in gaol and all debts paid off, he believed he was safe. After a few months, however, he was horrified to receive an anonymous letter of the type in which the cheques had arrived. The writer of the letter politely requested that Burford send a copy of certain Government documents to a particular address, in return for which he would receive generous remuneration as he had done in the past. However, if he refused to do so, then the writer of the letter would have no choice but to report the fact of his previous spying activities to the proper authorities.

‘Naturally, this put Burford in something of a tricky position, but after reflecting on the matter he realized that he was now involved too deeply and that there was no way out for him, so he did as the letter demanded and supplied the documents in question.’

‘Good God,’ exclaimed Lord Strathmerrick. ‘Do you mean to say the fellow has been passing information to foreign powers ever since he was elected to Parliament?’

‘And before that, too,’ said Jameson. ‘According to him, the whole thing started as a regrettable error but swiftly descended into an agonizing and shameful torture from which he could see no escape. Apparently, he has been beating his breast in misery for the past year and a half at least, and has been suffering from the most unbearable guilt.’

‘He didn’t feel guilty enough to turn down the money though, I guess,’ said Aubrey dryly.

‘No,’ agreed Henry. ‘His little—er—side-line appears to have been rather remunerative. At any rate,’ he went on, ‘the anonymous letters continued to arrive—not too frequently, of course; too often would have aroused suspicion—and each time Burford saw no choice but to do as he was told.’

Here the Earl snorted. Henry ignored him and went on:

‘Now we come to our little incident here. Burford says that last week he received another letter, telling him that Professor Klausen would be bringing some important papers to Fives Castle, and that he was to get hold of them. As we all know, Klausen never turned up—alive, at least—and Burford started to get worried. What would happen if he couldn’t get the documents? Would he be exposed? Fortunately for him, the Foreign Secretary then revealed that he had another copy, and so he determined to get that one instead and thereby save his skin—although, of course, he was unaware that the two sets of documents were not the same. He knew Mrs. Buchanan’s real identity, although he had kept quiet up until then for reasons best known to himself—perhaps he was hoping to make use of her in some way—’

‘He did that all right,’ said Sandy Buchanan bitterly.

Henry cast him a sympathetic glance and went on:

‘—so he approached her and blackmailed her in turn, threatening to reveal who she really was if she did not get the papers for him, which she duly did after the dance on New Year’s Eve. Luckily, because of the snow, he couldn’t pass them on to his correspondent and so here they are, back in our possession, thanks to some quick thinking on the part of Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Pilkington-Soames. Had they not spotted Burford trying to escape, he might have got clean away. It was by the merest chance that I happened to glance out of the window and see them heading after him. It took Bradley and me a little while to catch up, although young Freddy seemed to have the situation well in hand by the time we arrived.’

‘So he stole one set of documents, but claims he didn’t steal the other one,’ said Aubrey Nash. ‘Can that be true? He can’t possibly deny having killed Klausen too, can he?’

‘One would imagine not, and yet that is what he says,’ said Henry. ‘This is where the story becomes even stranger. According to Burford, after Mrs. Buchanan gave him the documents he put them in his pocket and went into the library, with some intention of finding a temporary hiding-place for them in case the alarm was raised and a search instituted. He initially saw nothing untoward, but after a few minutes of looking about him for a suitable place of concealment, he spotted what looked like a foot sticking out from behind the large ornamental globe in the corner. On further investigation he discovered to his astonishment that it was the body of Professor Klausen, who had evidently been shot.

‘Burford then claims to have lost his head. He immediately assumed that somebody was trying to pin the murder on him and determined to hide the body so that it should never be found. He intended to bury it somewhere on the Fives estate once the snow had melted, but in the meantime hid it in what he considered to be the nearest safe place—the wooden chest in the billiard-room next door. The room is generally cold, and so he judged that there was little risk of anyone noticing a smell for some days at least. Naturally, he had no idea that six people were hiding in a cupboard there while he did it. I imagine it must have come as the most awful shock to him when he found out.’

‘It did,’ said Gabe. ‘I remember it distinctly. He looked at me as though he’d seen a ghost.’

‘Does he admit to having searched Klausen’s pockets?’ said Aubrey. ‘He must have done, or he’s even more of an idiot than I thought.’

‘Yes,’ replied Henry. ‘He searched them as soon as he had got over the surprise of finding the body, but found nothing, he says.’

‘Look here, this is all nonsense,’ said Lord Strathmerrick. ‘Why is he bothering to deny having murdered Klausen? Of course he did it. What you ought to be doing now, Jameson, is searching for the gun and the other set of papers.’

‘I have the gun already,’ said Henry. ‘Mrs. Marchmont found it planted in her handbag last night.’

‘Is that what she said?’ said the Earl. ‘Then why didn’t she tell you before?’

‘She didn’t have the opportunity,’ said Henry. ‘She took it out with her this afternoon, intending to use it as a means of bringing back Burford, but has now given it to me.’

‘Are you sure it’s the murder weapon?’

‘I believe so,’ said Henry, ‘although we won’t be able to tell for certain until we’ve examined it properly and got the bullet out of Professor Klausen for comparison.’

Sandy Buchanan rubbed his eyes. The day had been a hard one for him.

‘So, then, leaving aside the small matter of the murder, this is where we stand,’ he said. ‘We have the documents that were stolen from my trunk, but we are still missing the ones that Klausen was carrying. We don’t know which documents are the right ones, so we need both copies in order to make sure Klausen’s research doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. How can we find the second set, if Burford won’t admit to having taken them?’