A Grave Man (28 page)

‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘For a Communist, you seem to have a way with the aristocracy.’ He regretted it the moment he had spoken. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. I just . . . I was jealous of . . .’

‘Forget it,’ Verity responded but his words had wounded her to the heart. What did it say about her if her lover could accuse her, of all people, of being a hypocrite?

She hardly heard Adam as he went on, ‘I’m not a Nazi, Verity. I’m a patriot. I will fight for my country if it comes to war with England. Though I will do it with a heavy heart, I shall fight.’

‘Well then,’ she said gently, ‘we shall be on opposite sides. If I married you and we went to live in Germany, I could not possibly stop doing everything I could, however feeble, to oppose the Nazis and we should both end up in a concentration camp. I could never allow that.’

‘Well then? Have we any future together?’ He turned to look at her and she saw the pain in his eyes.

‘We must seize the day. Come with me to Vienna – just for a few weeks – and help me establish myself. I know it is selfish of me but I will need you and not just as a lover. In any case, you promised to teach me German. I can’t get by on endearments, you know,
Liebchen
.’

‘
Leben muss man und lieben;
es endet Leben und Liebe. Schnittet ihr Parzen doch nur die beiden Fäden zugleich
. One must live and love; life and love must end. If only, Destiny, you’d cut both these threads at once. Goethe.’

‘You love poetry, don’t you?’ She got out of bed and went over to him at the window. ‘Come back to bed. Touch me here. Can you feel how much I need you?’ She stood on tiptoe, put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.

With a reluctance which quickly turned to eager passion, he returned her kiss. He shook off his trousers and carried her over to the bed. ‘I love you!’ he cried as he thrust himself into her as if this were their last moment together. Later, he lay with his head on her breast and she stroked his hair and stubbled cheek, murmuring endearments. He shivered and she pulled the sheet over them as their sweat cooled. He lit a cigarette for her and then one for himself. A black cloud passed over the sun and darkened the window. Rain began to spatter against the panes.

‘I am so scared,’ she whispered in his ear.

‘You are as brave as a lion,’ he said, raising his head a little and looking at her with surprise.

‘No, no. I am scared most of the time.’

‘Scared of what?’

‘Of everything – of what awaits me in Vienna, of the coming war, of losing you . . .’

‘You are not going to lose me.’

‘Not today, not tomorrow, not next week, but I will lose you. We both know that.’

‘I don’t know that,’ he contradicted her, ‘but, if you are right, we must – as you say –
carpe diem
. By the way, I am lunching at the Embassy tomorrow with a friend of mine. What would they say if they knew I had been sleeping with the enemy?’

‘Maybe they do know?’ Verity said, eyes wide in alarm. ‘Are you sure you are not being watched?’

‘The Gestapo is not yet active in England,’ he said soothingly. But Verity was not soothed and held him tightly as if, once he left her arms, she would never see him again.

Edward put in a trunk call to the police station at Tunbridge Wells and asked to speak to Inspector Jebb. He was put through with very little delay and before he could say a word Jebb said, ‘Is that really you, Lord Edward? I shall have to start believing in telepathy. I was about to telephone you and ask whether you would mind coming down and having a word.’

‘You aren’t going to arrest me, I hope, Inspector?’

‘Indeed not, your lordship. The fact of the matter is Chief Inspector Pride was with me yesterday and suggested I might talk to you. I have to confess that we have come to something of standstill, a cul-de-sac, if you follow me.’

‘When would you like to see me, Inspector? I am yours to command.’

‘That’s very good of you. Would tomorrow be too early for you?’

‘Will Chief Inspector Pride be there?’

‘Regretfully, the Chief Inspector has to be in court tomorrow.’

‘What has he done?’ Edward inquired, possessed by an urge to be jocular.

‘No, my lord, you misunderstand me. He is giving evidence in the case of Mr Harold Mottram. You may have read about it in the newspapers.’

‘The Indo-China fraud case?’

‘That’s correct. Far be it for me to prejudge a case but Chief Inspector Pride is very satisfied he will get a conviction.’

‘Well, that is very good news. I shall be with you at – what shall we say – ten thirty?’

As soon as he had put down the receiver he picked it up again and asked the operator to put him through to Swifts Hill. The butler, Lampton, answered and told him that Sir Simon was away but Lady Castlewood was at home.

When Virginia came to the phone, Edward was concerned to find she was not her normal buoyant self. Her voice trembled as if she had been crying.

‘Is that you, Lord Edward?’

When he told her that he was coming down to see Inspector Jebb and asked if there was any possibility of a bed for the night she was positively effusive.

‘That would be wonderful. I very much need advice and I thought of you but, to tell the truth, I was frightened to ask you. Isn’t that absurd? You would be doing us all such a favour if you would come.’

He wondered to whom the ‘all’ referred but she supplied the answer before he had to ask the question.

‘Lampton told you my husband is abroad but Roddy and Isolde are here.’

Jebb said, ‘I keep on thinking I’m just about to crack it when I come across some insuperable objection.’

He and Chief Inspector Pride were seated with Edward at a small table in the room used for interviews. Mottram had changed his plea to guilty and Pride had been told that he need not take the stand after all. The police station was small and badly in need of expansion and improvement. What had once been a sparsely populated area was now experiencing a rapid growth in population. Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells were thriving and what Jebb disparagingly called ‘stockbroker houses’ were springing up everywhere, destroying a countryside which had not changed over many centuries.

‘You know these people. You have inside information,’ Pride said. ‘I told Jebb you would help if you could, Lord Edward. I was right, wasn’t I?’

Edward looked at him speculatively. He had never particularly liked the man but he knew him to be a good police officer. ‘I am flattered that you should think so, Chief Inspector. Can you bring me up to date with the two investigations and then I can add any crumbs of information I happen to have picked up.’

‘Certainly. As far as my investigation into Professor Pitt-Messanger’s murder in the Abbey is concerned, I have decided to accept the confession Maud Pitt-Messanger made to you. I have failed to find any other credible suspect. We know the old man had his enemies but none of them were in the Abbey as far as we have been able to discover. In any case, most of them are academics – men as old as he was and therefore hardly likely to commit murder, however much they might dislike him.’

‘You’ve traced no one related to Sidney Temperley then?’

‘The man who claimed to have discovered that tomb . . .?’ Jebb interjected.

‘And who was more or less engaged to Maud Pitt-Messanger,’ Edward added.

‘Nothing,’ Pride said ruefully. ‘It was the obvious lead but, as far as I have been able to find out, there are no living relatives and no close friends. No one, in other words, who might have wanted to avenge his death.’

‘But something is worrying you?’ Edward prompted.

‘Yes . . . if the girl hated her father so much for taking away her one chance of a husband and a normal life, why wait so long before doing away with him? She would have had hundreds of opportunities to kill him in the privacy of their own home. Why choose to do it in the most public place imaginable?’

‘Because at home, if her father had died unexpectedly for no obvious reason, she would have been the obvious suspect. But in a public place . . .’ Jebb said.

‘Correct,’ Edward agreed, ‘but there is more to it than that. I believe she must have found out something which sparked off this moment of madness.’

‘Something like what?’ Pride asked doubtfully.

‘Well, I’m only guessing, but it may have been about that brother of hers who disappeared when she was only a child.’

‘Didn’t he run away to sea?’ Jebb inquired.

‘He may have done,’ Pride said heavily. ‘I discovered that he had a harelip and a cleft palate. Miss Pitt-Messanger believed – according to what she told Miss Browne – that Mr Montillo operated on him. Montillo, when I asked him about it, denied it, saying he did not even know of his existence.’

‘Huh!’ Edward expostulated.

‘You don’t believe him and I’m not sure I do,’ Pride said. ‘You think someone told Maud what had really happened to the boy. She blamed her father for whatever it was and stabbed him. It certainly explains the dagger. It could have been one in the Professor’s own collection.’

‘Or the boy came back unrecognized and stabbed his father,’ Jebb suggested.

They thought about this and finally Pride said, ‘Have you any ideas, Lord Edward?’

‘I do, as a matter of fact, but it’s only an idea. Let me do a bit of digging and I will report back.’

‘So who murdered Maud Pitt-Messanger?’ Jebb sighed. ‘It must have been someone staying at Swifts Hill because they had to have easy access to the dagger. The murderer chose it quite deliberately when he or she – but probably he given the strength required to drag the body into the water – stabbed her. He chose to use the dagger rather than a less showy weapon like a kitchen knife or . . .’

‘Or a cricket bat,’ Edward put in. Pride laughed.

‘No, I am serious, Chief Inspector,’ Edward continued. ‘We take it for granted that Maud was stabbed – like her father – but it would have been easier to knock her on the back of the head with a heavy implement. Then unconscious – if not dead – she could be dragged into the water and drowned.’

‘But she wasn’t drowned.’

’No, Jebb. So, if you think it was a man who killed Miss Pitt-Messanger and someone with easy access to the dagger, that surely doesn’t leave many suspects.’

‘No, my lord. Sir Simon himself and Mr Montillo, who may have returned from London earlier than he said . . .’

‘Miss Berners is adamant she saw him talking to Sir Simon.’ Edward had given the two policemen an edited account of his meeting with her.

‘Yes,’ Pride said. ‘We’ll have to ask both gentlemen if they did meet earlier than we had thought – without of course saying who saw them together,’ he added, seeing Edward’s face.

‘Mr Maitland, Mr Cardew, the young German, von Trott, and – begging your pardon, my lord – yourself and your nephew . . .’ Jebb continued.

‘Quite right, Inspector,’ Edward concurred. ‘And don’t forget that I was also in the Abbey when her father was killed.’

Jebb smiled uneasily but pressed on with his list. ‘Dr Morris – but we can rule him out, I think. Mr Harvey . . .’

Pride raised an eyebrow. ‘The Communist gentleman who lives on the estate?’

‘That’s him, Chief Inspector,’ Edward said, a little too eagerly. ‘I don’t like the look of him and Miss Pitt-Messanger had confided in him. He might have known more than was good for him.’

‘Miss Browne seems to have seen a good deal of him at Swifts Hill,’ Jebb said, not looking at Edward.

Edward frowned. ‘They’re both Communists, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t see what else they could have in common.’

‘Miss Browne visited Mr Harvey in his cottage very early on the day after the dagger was stolen,’ Jebb said mildly.

‘She did what? She never told me . . .’ Edward said in surprise. ‘I mean, she told me she had talked to him but not . . .’

‘Not
when
she talked to him? She probably did not think it relevant,’ Pride said, trying unsuccessfully to be tactful.

‘Mr Harvey told me they discussed Mr Churchill. Apparently Mr Harvey does not care for the gentleman.’

Edward was silent. He would not humiliate himself by asking Jebb for any further details of the conversation. He would get that out of Verity himself as soon as the opportunity arose.

Jebb said carefully, ‘We have to consider the possibility that Miss Browne took the dagger out of the case while she was being shown it and then passed it to Mr Harvey. She must have had some reason for meeting Mr Harvey when she did. Mr Harvey says it was accidental but we only have his word for that. She says she went for a walk because she could not sleep.’ Jebb was consulting his notes. ‘Harvey was also out walking and they met and went back to his cottage for coffee. Miss Browne was wet and chilled.’ He finished reading.

Edward said nothing but looked like thunder.

‘Mind you,’ said Pride, ‘reading your notes of your interview with Sir Simon, Jebb, it doesn’t look as though Miss Browne would have had an opportunity to remove the dagger before Sir Simon pointed out that it was missing.’

‘True,’ Jebb acknowledged quickly, ‘and she would not have known about the dagger before Sir Simon took her to see the collection.’

The two policemen looked at each other but carefully avoided Edward’s eye. Edward, head bowed, said nothing. With relief, Jebb went on consulting his list. ‘That’s the eight men on Sir Simon’s team. The other two were Sir Simon’s tenants who were press-ganged to play for him. Neither are serious suspects as they are unlikely to have known about the dagger and hadn’t met Miss Pitt-Messanger.’

Edward roused himself. ‘Right, that’s eight and Dominic Montillo. One of us killed Maud and I think I know who it was but I don’t know why. Will you give me twenty-four hours, Jebb? No, give me a week – I may have to go down to the South of France to get my facts straight, you understand.’

Jebb looked at him curiously. ‘Very good, my lord. I would be most grateful for anything that you can come up with. It may be that one of these gentlemen will talk more freely to you than they will to me.’

‘The South of France?’ Pride said, stroking his chin. ‘You think the two murders are connected to Mr Montillo’s beauty clinic?’