The Mystery at Underwood House (An Angela Marchmont Mystery) (20 page)

Robin started violently and whirled round to face her, terrified. He looked dreadful: unkempt and unshaven and under-fed. Angela regarded him not unsympathetically.

‘
Don’t you think you should stop all this nonsense and turn yourself in?’ she asked.

He shrank away from her. He appeared to have lost the power of speech.

‘
Surely you weren’t planning to stay here forever?’ Angela went on. ‘You would have been discovered very soon, you know. Somebody would have noticed that food was being stolen, or you would have been heard, or seen.’

‘
I was only going to stay until the fuss had died down,’ he said, regaining his voice with an effort, ‘then I should have gone abroad somewhere.’

‘
And how did you propose to do that? They are looking out for you at all the ports. And even supposing you did manage to make it out of the country, how did you expect to live? The money you took from your mother wouldn’t have lasted long. Really, Robin, I don’t think you have quite thought this out. Speculating with other people’s money is bad enough, but if you are going to do it you should at least be certain at first that you are going to make a decent fist of it. And then not even to have a proper escape route planned when it all went wrong—why, that looks very like incompetence to me.’

‘
I suppose you would have done it differently,’ he said petulantly.

‘
I shouldn’t have done it at all,’ she said. ‘But if I wanted to, I should do it better than you have. I thought you were supposed to be an expert in financial matters. You must have been aware of the risks you were running.’

‘
You’re a woman, so I can’t expect you to understand how the markets can turn against one at any moment. I was doing perfectly well—had been for months, as a matter of fact. Then that Anglo-Pretoria business happened and I was left completely exposed.’

‘
But why did you start doing it in the first place? Selling short is a dangerous thing to do at the best of times, but doing it with your clients’ money is positively reckless.’

He looked sulky.

‘
I could hardly afford to do it with my own money, could I? I am not a rich man. I could have been, though—I had the chance to make thousands, and nobody would have been any the wiser had it all gone to plan. All I had to do was borrow the stock for a little while then give it back once I’d made the trade. What harm could it possibly do?’

‘
None, so long as the markets were going your way. Unfortunately for you, they didn’t. Did you approach your Aunt Winifred after you got into difficulties following the Anglo-Pretoria business?’

‘
Yes. I needed money to cover my losses, and she had plenty. I thought I should have no trouble in making up the difference, and expected to provide a healthy return for her into the bargain, but things went from bad to worse and I was left stony-broke.’

‘
But how did you manage to cover it all up for so long?’

‘
They trusted me at Peake’s,’ he said. ‘Or, at least, they did until recently. I gather that someone had lately got wind of what was happening and they had me watched. To tell the truth, it was almost a relief when it all came out. For over a year I had lived in fear of discovery. There was no possibility of getting money from anyone else—although I did ask everyone I could think of—so I sat on the losses for months and months, terrified that somebody was going to start asking awkward questions. When the police came I fully intended to face up to it all, but then they started hinting that I had murdered Aunt Winifred and I—well, I lost my nerve and ran away.’

‘
Yes, the police did suggest that you might have had a hand in her death.’

‘
I didn’t kill her, I tell you!’ he cried.

‘
But you did search her pockets when you found her lying dead on the floor, didn’t you?’

He cast his eyes down.

‘
How did you know that?’ he said.

‘
I didn’t, until a few days ago. You and Donald both claimed that the other was first on the scene after she fell and it was impossible to say which of you was telling the truth. After you disappeared the police found a letter from you to Winifred, which you had tried to destroy, and they immediately concluded that you had retrieved it from her pocket after she fell.’

‘
You must think me an utter wretch,’ he said.

‘
You have made rather a mess of things, certainly,’ agreed Angela, ‘but if it is of any comfort to you, I know you are not guilty of murder.’

‘
What am I to do?’ he cried suddenly, and Angela was reminded of his mother’s desperate outburst of a few days earlier.

‘
First, you must come down from the attic and have a wash and some dinner. After that, what you do is entirely up to you. Your mother is here, you know. She has been frantic with worry about you.’

‘
Has she? I thought she would be furious with me.’

‘
I imagine she is. But your father is dead and you are her only child—the only person she has left in the world. Naturally, she is anxious about you.’

For a second he looked forlorn, like a little boy who had been caught in the pantry eating sugar and was waiting to hear what his punishment would be.

‘
How—how long do you think they will put me in prison for?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘
I don’t know,’ said Angela. ‘I believe your mother has already engaged a good defence counsel, however. He will be able to advise you. Perhaps you will get off lightly.’

He sighed.

‘
I guess it was absurd of me to think I could hide up here for long without being caught,’ he said. ‘I was getting bored and that probably made me careless. And people keep coming up here. I think you’re the fourth one today.’

‘
It can’t be much fun living alone in an attic,’ agreed Angela. ‘Now, are you going to go down and face your mother?’

He winced at the thought.

‘
I suppose I must. Will you come with me, Mrs. Marchmont? I daren’t face her on my own.’

Angela laughed.

‘
Don’t worry—Louisa and the others are there and will protect you from her, then that will be the hardest part over and done with. After that, facing the police will seem like child’s play.’

‘
That’s true enough,’ he said feelingly. He stood up and emerged from the den in which he had spent almost a week. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said.

‘
I have one or two things to do up here, then I shall come down,’ said Angela.

He did not ask what the one or two things were, but nodded and went off. She heard his footsteps as he descended the stairs, then the sound of the door opening and closing. Her thoughts returned to the inlaid box and its astonishing contents and she moved over to the writing-desk, intending to read quickly through one or two more of the papers before removing the whole thing and taking it to her room to show to Inspector Jameson when he arrived. She had just lifted the lid of the box when she heard the attic door open again and the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs slowly.

‘
Back here already? I thought you were going to confess everything to your mother,’ she said without turning round.

‘
My mother is dead,’ said a voice behind her.

Angela’s heart beat loudly in her breast and she turned round.

‘
I thought you had gone out into the woods,’ she said.

‘
Yes, you did, didn’t you?’ said Guy. ‘But here I am, as you see.’

He wore his usual insouciant smile, but now there was something chilling about it. Angela noticed for the first time how powerfully built he was, and remembered that he had once been an athlete.

‘
Where is Donald? Is he—is he all right?’ she asked hesitantly.

He shrugged.

‘
I haven’t the faintest idea. I should imagine your man has caught up with him by now—I saw him, by the way, as I was doubling back, looking terribly brave and firm of purpose. Perhaps he will shoot his quarry and save me the trouble. Or perhaps Don has returned of his own accord and is now being comforted by Stella. I’m sure he’ll forgive her her temporary lapse in faith.’ His expression hardened.

Angela said nothing and he looked at her thoughtfully.

‘
How silent you are, Angela. Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? I thought you might at least apologize for breaking into my box and trying to steal my things.’

‘
You knew I should be up here, then?’

‘
I guessed, yes. You really ought to be more discreet when you confer with your young American, you know. I saw you both poring over my letter from Faulkner downstairs and knew the game was up, as they say. I came up here and saw what had happened. My first instinct was to take the box away, of course, but on reflection I thought it might be better to leave it here as bait. I knew you would want to read the other things.’

‘
Yes, I did,’ replied Angela. ‘I have just read your most recent letter from Philip and it makes me feel terribly sorry for you.’

He frowned.

‘
Sorry for me? Why on earth should you be sorry for me?’

‘
Because you are quite alone, and the only person you had to rely upon in your life—the person who should have protected you most of all—has been deceiving you cruelly, even from beyond the grave.’

‘
Deceiving me? Of course he hasn’t been deceiving me. He told me the truth about my mother and her family when no-one else would. Finally, after all these years, I know why she was always so unhappy, and why she would never talk to me about it when she was alive. I have heard all about my so-called
father
,’ he spat out the word, ‘the farm-hand who attacked her. I know how her family spurned her after her disgrace and cast her out of the house without mercy when my grandfather’s back was turned. And these are the people who congratulated themselves and grew fat on their new-found riches when Grandfather died—the brothers and sisters who treated my mother so wickedly that she died of a broken heart when I was only eight years old. What right had they to live when she was dead through their actions?’

‘
But Guy, your mother went of her own free will,’ said Angela. ‘Nobody cast her out. She hated her father and wanted to escape his influence, so she ran away.’

‘
It’s not true, I tell you,’ he snapped. ‘That’s what the Hayneses want everybody to think, but I know better.’

‘
Did your mother tell you the story?’

‘
I told you, she wouldn’t talk about it.’

‘
Then all your information has come from your grandfather, and if I have learned anything in the past week or two, it is that he was not a man to be depended upon.’

‘
You are wrong,’ he said. ‘He was a good, kind man. After my mother died he sought me out and paid for my schooling. It is all thanks to him that I won my scholarship to Oxford. Then, when I came down, he gave me the post here at Underwood, and promised he should always provide for me. He was the only family I had—the only one who acknowledged me, at any rate. I know the rest of them would have shunned me had they known who I was.’

Angela had a sudden flash of realization.

‘
John knows,’ she said. ‘Did Philip tell him?’

‘
Does he know?’ said Guy with mild interest. ‘I’ve often wondered whether he did. He looks at me in an odd way, sometimes.’

‘
I think he has been protecting you, although I can’t believe he knows the whole truth. Or perhaps he does know and has been trying to fool himself. Christina was his favourite sister, you know.’

‘
That’s what he told
you
, I expect.’

Never one to argue uselessly, Angela was silent. He moved a little closer to her and she gazed at him warily.

‘
I mustn’t take my eyes off him,’ she thought.

‘
You’ve gone quiet again. Aren’t you simply dying to tell me how clever you’ve been in working it all out?’ he asked.

‘
Not especially,’ she replied.

‘
No, you’re not the type to boast about your triumphs, are you? I must admit I wasn’t particularly impressed when I first met you. You seemed far too polite and reserved to do anything effectively. But then you immediately started looking at the thing logically and methodically, so I thought I had better watch my step. And then Louisa told me you had found the photograph, which I must have dropped when I was down at the lake in February, and I had to get it back at all costs.’

‘
So you thought you might as well try and put me out of the way while you were at it,’ said Angela.

‘
Oh, that was quite on the spur of the moment,’ he said. ‘The opportunity was far too good to miss. It was a close thing, though—I nearly got caught thanks to the unfortunate public-spiritedness of an enthusiastic crowd of young lads.’

‘
The other day in the woods was premeditated, though.’

‘
Naturally,’ he said lightly. ‘I had already become somewhat concerned after I followed you one evening in London and saw that you were in league with Inspector Jameson—you kept that rather quiet, by the way. Then, when I overheard you talking about my mother to old Briggs, I realized you had somehow got on to the right track and thought I’d better do something about it sharpish. Unluckily for me I missed you first time and alerted you to the danger. Careless of me—I am generally a crack shot. But tell me, Angela, what put you on to me in the first place? I am curious to know.’

‘
Your mother’s birthday,’ said Angela. He looked at her, uncomprehending, and she went on, ‘When I first met you, you said that on the day Winifred died you were away because it was your mother’s birthday. I assumed you meant you had gone to lunch with her, but then later Stella told me that you were an orphan, and I realized you must have been visiting her grave.’

He nodded.

‘
In addition to that, something Susan said led me to believe that Philip had set up a secret trust to benefit an unknown person, and I wondered whether it might have some connection with Christina. Then John mentioned that her birthday was in May, and shortly afterwards I heard that she had had a child. Two dead mothers with birthdays in May and a connection to Underwood House might easily have been a coincidence, but I decided to look into it anyway. A trip to Somerset House confirmed the theory.’

‘
Didn’t you suspect Donald, then? Everybody else seemed to.’

‘
I did look at his birth certificate just in case,’ said Angela, ‘but I thought he was too young to be Christina’s son. Besides, you were the one with the broken watch.’

‘
Ah! I wondered whether that would give me away. Yes, drowning a man does tend to damage one’s things, rather. I had to dispose of a perfectly good dinner suit, too.’

‘
And you had been up to London to try and get the watch repaired. Was it the same day you took the photograph from me?’

He nodded again.

‘
I thought it might be.’ She paused for a second. ‘So Philip left instructions that a family meeting was to be held on your mother’s birthday every year,’ she went on. ‘But what about the other meeting, the one on the 16th of February?’

‘
It’s the anniversary of the day she died,’ he said. ‘I asked Edward down by the lake whether he recognized the significance of the date, and he didn’t—not even when I showed him the photograph. The date of his own sister’s death, and he didn’t even remember it! That is unforgivable.’

‘
Perhaps he didn’t know when it was.’

‘
Then he ought to have found it out,’ he said angrily. ‘That was typical of them all—they cared for nobody but themselves. While they were living off Grandfather I don’t suppose they ever spared a thought for the years of poverty and misery my mother and I had to suffer; all the times she went without so she could buy shoes and books and food for me. In the end it wore her out and she simply gave up. They deserved nothing, I tell you, except what they got from me.’

‘
Did you poison Philippa?

‘
No. That was Ursula’s idea, wasn’t it? Digitalin, or something. No, I didn’t poison her—I went into her bedroom in the dead of night when she was fast asleep and held a pillow over her face until she suffocated. Nobody suspected a thing: after all, she’d been ill with heart trouble for years, and no-one would have been in the slightest bit surprised had she popped off at any moment.’

‘
When did Mr. Faulkner realize that you were responsible for the deaths of your aunts and uncle? Or was he in on the whole thing?’

‘
No, he wasn’t in on it, but he received a nice, fat payment from Grandfather in return for keeping quiet about the secret trust. I think he started to suspect what was going on after I killed Winifred—it was after her death that he started to make excuses as to why I couldn’t have my money immediately. I guess he was just testing things out a little, and looking to see how I would react. But I wasn’t going to stand for that. I called his bluff and demanded payment and he gave in.’

‘
I take it he knew who your mother was.’

‘
Yes, he was in on that all right. It was his idea to set up the secret trust, as a matter of fact.’

‘
Then after Edward died you approached him for the five thousand pounds and this time he wrote back asking for a share of it in return for his silence.’

‘
That was the letter you saw, yes.’ Guy shook his head slowly. ‘Stupid old man. Did he really think I should let him get away with that kind of trick? And supposing I had given in to his demand, would that have been the end of it? Why, of course not! He would have left me alone for a little while, and then, just as I was beginning to breathe again and feel that all was safe, I should have received a terribly polite letter from him, telling me that he was unfortunately very embarrassed for funds at the moment and could I see my way clear etcetera etcetera? Once he had got his hooks into me I should never have been rid of him, and so I had to do something about it.’

‘
Blackmail is a risky enterprise,’ said Angela. ‘I wonder he didn’t realize the danger he was putting himself in.’

‘
He was a conceited old fool who thought he was far too clever for me. Well, he was wrong. You don’t happen to have his letter on you, by the way, do you?’ he asked carelessly.

‘
No,’ said Angela. ‘I have put it in a safe place.’

‘
No matter,’ he said. ‘I’m quite resigned to being rumbled. Now I suppose everybody will find out what I’ve been up to. Not that that will help you, though.’

‘
What do you mean?’

He took a step forward. His manner was as carefree as ever.

‘
Why, I need to get away as quickly as possible,’ he said lightly, ‘and you’re rather an obstacle in my path, I’m afraid.’