The Ka of Gifford Hillary (18 page)

In the doorway he paused for a minute while he took a careful look round. Silvers, having been otherwise occupied, had not yet cleared up there so the glasses that Johnny and Ankaret had used were still on the bow-fronted cabinet in which the drinks were kept. Walking over to it he picked up Ankaret’s glass, sniffed at it, and ascertained what it had contained by tasting the few drops that remained in it. He then went across to the desk and finding it locked stood there staring at it thoughtfully.

I watched him with considerable anxiety as it was evident that his suspicions had been aroused by something, although on what lines his mind was working I could not guess. But at that moment both his thoughts and mine were distracted by Silvers appearing in the doorway and saying:

‘The police have just arrived, Sir.’

Hurrying out to the hall, Johnny greeted the two plainclothes officers who stood there. The taller, a dark-haired sadfaced man, introduced himself as Inspector Mallet, and his younger, brisker-looking companion as Sergeant Haines. Then he said:

‘I understand, Sir, that you reported an accidental death as having taken place here. I trust there are no grounds for supposing it to have been anything else, and that we shan’t have to trouble you with our presence for long. Perhaps you would be good enough to give me particulars.’

Johnny made a wry grimace. ‘Since I telephoned, Inspector, we have discovered that this is an even more terrible affair than I supposed. Apparently my uncle, Sir Gifford Hillary, had a quarrel with Professor Evans who was employed by him here, killed him, and then committed suicide.’

‘That certainly is a terrible business,’ the sad-faced Inspector agreed; and turning to his subordinate he added: ‘You had better telephone for the squad, Jim.’

As the Sergeant went over to the instrument in the hall,
the Inspector asked: ‘Who discovered the bodies, Sir?’

‘I did,’ Johnny told him.

‘Then when the Sergeant’s done, we had better take a look at them.’

Taking matters in their proper order, Johnny first led them down to the beach house. On the way he described how he had found my body, then said that Dr. Culver had already examined it and given the opinion that I had not died by drowning but owing to a heart-attack caused by some pills that I had taken just before throwing myself into the water.

The Inspector nodded. ‘If Dr. Culver says that I don’t doubt the police surgeon will agree with him. I’ve known him since I was a youngster on the beat, and I don’t remember him ever having been proved wrong when giving evidence in a court case.’

His statement cheered me as I had feared that they might do an autopsy, in which case it would have emerged that I had not died as the result of an overdose of a dangerous drug, and the whole of Ankaret’s cleverly thought out way of explaining my death would be brought into question. But it looked now as if there was a good chance of her clearing that dangerous hurdle.

After viewing my body, they returned to the house and went up to the laboratory. About the way in which Evans had met his death there could be no doubt whatever. His battered head and face told their own story, and nearby lay the steel rod with congealed blood and a few of his dark hairs still on it.

Pointing at it the Sergeant remarked: ‘There’s the instrument, all right; and it’s probably smothered with Sir Gifford’s fingerprints. When we are faced with having to find out who done it we don’t often get a lead like that; yet here we’re given it on a plate in a case that is plain sailing.’

‘Maybe it’s plain sailing, maybe not. Can’t be certain as yet,’ replied the Inspector with the caution bred of long habit. Then turning to Johnny, he asked: ‘Have you any idea why they quarrelled, Sir?’

Johnny drew the letter from his pocket and handed it over. ‘Sir Gifford left that in the hall letter-box before he went out to his death. It was found there this morning with the rest
of the post. I took it up to Lady Ankaret when I broke the news to her about her husband’s death. When she had read it, she gave it to me. That is how I learned that Professor Evans was dead too. Naturally, the family will be most anxious to avoid a scandal. But I’m sure you gentlemen would soon uncover the truth, and that my showing you this right away will save everyone a lot of unpleasantness. I should be very grateful, though, if you would treat the matter with as much discretion as possible.’

Before replying, the Inspector read the letter, then handed if on to his colleague, and said to Johnny: ‘Thank you, Sir. We always try to show our appreciation when people are frank with us, and this has saved us having to scratch our heads about a motive. In fact it seems to give us the whole unhappy story in a nutshell. I am afraid it will have to be put in as evidence at the inquest, but we can arrange to have it shown only to those concerned instead of read aloud. And, of course, your having produced it is going to make it unnecessary for the coroner to ask Lady Ankaret a number of embarrassing questions.’

On Johnny’s face I could see the relief he felt at having done the right thing. Quite unwittingly, too, he had done exactly as Ankaret had wanted him to, by establishing her own story from the outset in the minds of the police. Inspector Mallet asked him:

‘Were you, by any chance, aware, Sir, that Her Ladyship was having this affair with Professor Evans?’

Johnny promptly replied that he had not the least idea of it.

The Inspector shrugged. ‘Ah well, I don’t doubt the servants knew all about it; they are usually pretty quick at spotting anything of that sort that’s going on. We may as well get downstairs now, and I’ll take a few notes about the occupants of the household. Sorry to bother you, Sir, but we have to do that as part of the routine.’

All three of them spent the best part of the next hour in the drawing-room. There was one interruption owing to the arrival of the second police car from Southampton. It brought the police surgeon, a photographer, a finger-print man, and two constables in uniform. The Inspector told them where they would find the bodies and gave them the O.K. to go
ahead; then he returned to his own business, which was asking Johnny a lot of apparently irrelevant questions while Sergeant Haines wrote down the replies.

I left them to it after the other police arrived, as I was much more concerned with what view the police surgeon might take of my body than with anything else.

Dr. Culver had waited to have a word with him; fortunately, he was both a youngish man and of the type that still shows some respect for its elders. Having invited Culver to view the two bodies with him, after making only a superficial check-up he accepted the older practitioner’s opinion about them.

Later it was agreed with Mallet that the double inquest should be held on Monday morning at eleven o’clock, and the Inspector said that he hoped Lady Ankaret would then be sufficiently recovered to give evidence if the Coroner wished her to be called.

Culver replied that she might be, but he could not guarantee it. Then when the letter was mentioned it transpired that she had told him about it and its contents, and he proceeded to urge that as she could now contribute nothing new to the enquiry, she should be spared the ordeal of having to appear at the inquest. Mallet said that he would not press for that if she was willing to make a statement to the police beforehand. Culver then promised that he would try to persuade her to do so, providing he considered her condition satisfactory.

These matters being settled, Culver told Johnny that he had given Ankaret a strong sedative and that for the next few hours she should not be disturbed. He added that when she asked for food she should be given only a light meal, and that he would come in again that evening.

What with Ankaret, Dr. Culver and the police, Johnny had not yet had a moment to attend to any other matters, let alone have any breakfast; but as soon as he had seen the doctor off, the thoughtful Silvers approached him and said:

‘I’ve put some sandwiches in the dining-room for you, Sir, and half a bottle of champagne. It’s past eleven o’clock, and with all the things you are having to attend to I felt that you really ought to have something to keep you going.’

Johnny smiled at the old boy appreciatively. ‘Jolly good of
you, Silvers. This business seems to have robbed me of my appetite, but I could do with a glass of wine. First, though, I must telephone to Mr. Compton.’

Having got through to the office Johnny broke the news to James, then asked if he could tell him where Bill Wiltshire was staying for the week-end. I gathered that James did not know, but said that he would try to find out, and announced his intention of driving over to Longshot within the next hour or so. Johnny then went into the dining-room, ate some of the sandwiches and knocked back the pint of Louis Roederer ’45.

He was still sitting there when the sad-faced Mallet came in to tell him that he had finished questioning the staff. He added that it had been only a formality and that none of them had heard anything during the night or been able to tell him anything beyond what he knew already; so there would now be no objection to Johnny calling in an undertaker to lay out the bodies, subject, of course, to their not being removed to a mortuary, so that they would be available for viewing by the Coroner’s court when it met at the house on Monday.

At midday James Compton arrived. On his way he had picked up Eddie Arnold, my solicitor. Eddie was also a personal friend of mine of long standing, as we had joined the R.A.F. on the same day and done our training together. Johnny gave them particulars of what had happened, then the three of them held a gloom session during which I could not help being moved by the nice things they said of me and their sorrow that death had taken me from them.

When they got down to business it transpired that James had had notices issued cancelling the Board Meeting that had been arranged for Monday, and that his secretary had managed to trace Bill Wiltshire. The house at which Bill was staying for a week-end’s shooting was near Winchester; so he could be expected to turn up sometime during the afternoon.

Eddie then said to Johnny: ‘As you probably know, when old Hugo Wittling died last year Giff appointed you an executor and trustee in his place; the other is James here. May I take it that you are both agreeable to act?’

Their both having agreed, he went on:

‘I haven’t yet had a chance to turn up Giffs last will, but I can remember its principal provisions. He made it at the time of his marriage to Ankaret. She will have the enjoyment for life of both Longshot Hall and the income on his shares in Hillary-Comptons, after the present allowances have been paid out of it to his first wife and her children. Fortunately he had the forethought to insure against death duties, so Ankaret should still be in a position to keep the place up. It is fortunate, too, as far as the Company is concerned; for it means that the Board will not have to find a buyer for a large part of his holding, and they would have otherwise, as apart from that his estate will amount only to a few thousands. On Ankaret’s death his boy, Harold, comes into the place and the Hillary-Compton shares, subject to certain provisions for his mother and sister, if still living. He is also the principal beneficiary, and, will get such money as there is to come now after the legacies have been paid out. I can’t recall details of them for the moment, but they were the usual sort of thing to old friends and servants, and I don’t think their total was more than about fifteen hundred pounds.’

After a moment, he added: ‘The will contains one rather unusual direction, though. Giff always had a terror that he might be buried alive. He told me that it originated in his having read while still a youngster an account of the removal of several hundred bodies from the Père La Chais cemetery in Paris. They wanted to run a railway embankment or something over that corner of the cemetery. Anyhow, when they dug up the half-rotted coffins they found to their horror that a score or more of the corpses had bent knees and raised hands with broken nails, showing that they had been buried while in a coma, and on coming round had striven to force their way out. I tried to persuade Giff to be cremated but he didn’t like the idea. So he stipulated in his will that there should be no lead coffin, that the lid of the wooden one should not be screwed down, that air holes should be bored in its ends, and that the family grave, which consists of a brick vault, should not be closed down until seven days after his coffin had been lowered into it.’

Johnny gave a little shudder. ‘What ghastly thoughts the discovery of those twisted bodies in the Père La Chaise cemetery conjures up.’

‘I think most of them had been buried for over a century,’ Eddie replied, ‘and medical science has advanced so much since then that there is little chance of that sort of thing happening now. All the same, we must see to it that Giff’s wishes are carried out.’

‘The police have given us the O.K. to have the bodies prepared for burial,’ Johnny informed him, ‘but I haven’t yet done anything about it, because I don’t know the name of the family undertaker.’

‘I can give you that,’ volunteered James. ‘I’ll look up the number and ring them up myself.’

When he had done so, he and Eddie had a mournful drink with Johnny, then went out to their car to drive back to Southampton.

The next visitor was a reporter from a Southampton paper, who had somehow got on to the affair; but apart from a bare admission that Evans and I had died the previous night, Johnny refused to give him any information. In anticipation of being further importuned by the press. Johnny went into the drawing-room and had a word with Mallet, who was busily writing his report there. At his request the Inspector promised to give the uniformed constable posted on the front door orders that no press-men were to be admitted or allowed to question the servants.

As Johnny came out into the hall Silvers appeared to announce that lunch was ready and apologise that it would be cold, owing to Mrs. Silvers being too upset to cook anything. Johnny said he quite understood, and asked that trays should be sent in to the Inspector and the Sergeant; then, with his thoughts evidently on other matters, he munched his way through the food that had been set out for him. He was just finishing one of my beautiful Triomphe de Vienne pears with a most distressing lack of appreciation when Silvers came in to tell him that Mr. Fisher, the undertaker, was in the hall.